Another World
by Abandon Structure
Summary: Chase was adopted by the Parkers. In Roswell secrets are unfolding and so are truths better left alone as new people arrive with the power to destroy everything they hold dear. Roswell/Covenant/Supernatural Crossover.
1. Prologue  Another Life

He hated not saying good-bye, but it was time for him to leave and he couldn't risk it. She wouldn't want him to go and the second she unleashed those doe-eyes on him, he was always so fucking slain he couldn't say no.

So he was leaving now, in the middle of the night, when everybody else was asleep. His sister would hate him for it in the morning, but it was the way it had to be. He needed answers and he wasn't going to find them in Roswell.

"You ready?" He glanced over at the female next to him, offering her a wry smile.

"Not really." She smiled back, without humor and with eyes far too grim for one so young.

"You still leaving?" Her smile was fake, forced, her expression fluctuating between concern and fear. If his sister ever found out she'd helped him, it was completely like the two girls would lose their burgeoning friendship.

She'd been alone for so long, she valued that friendship far more than she valued any of her material possession and she had some pretty neat stuff thanks to her Dad.

"Yes," he replied on a sigh, pulling his carefully packed duffel just a little bit tighter against his body.

She said nothing in reply, blue eyes flashing once as she jerked her head back around to the road in front of them.

"Nobody will be waiting for you," she informed him, obviously trying to come off as warning and instead reminding him more of a petulant child who didn't get her way.

He sighed again.

"I know."

"You won't have your sister or your parents to rely on."

"I know."

"There's no guarantee you'll even recognize them," she continued on, delving into the heart of the issue. "And there's even less of a guarantee that they'll talk to you. You aren't exactly their favorite person."

Now that was annoying.

"Sins of the past," he snapped back sharply, scowling as he shifted his body downwards in his seat. "It's been centuries since he died, and they already think I'm dead anyways."

"They don't think you're dead," the girl snapped back, equally snippy as she made a right-hand turn towards their destination. "They don't even know you exist."

"They will," he promised with honesty and determination that her scowl dropping to be replaced by worry.

"Look, you know, the last guy…he didn't do too well. He screwed up and they crucified him for it."

"I'm hardly going to go walking down the middle of the street using my powers without so much as a by-your-leave. I'm not _that_ stupid."

His joking tone elicited a flash of a smile from the younger girl, but it dissipated as she made another turn.

"Just, be careful. You're a good guy, but this is the mother of all sucky situations – I don't want things to get worse."

"Hey," he softened his tone, prompting her to turn and look at him, the streetlights lining the roadway glinting harsh against the tear tracks on her cheeks.

"I'm going to be fine."

She sniffled at that, reaching up to hastily wipe the tracks away.

"You don't know that," she stated, somewhat angrily, eyes on the road as she spotted their final destination. "Nobody ever knows that."

There was a finality to her words that reminded him, with painful clarity, that of all the people in Roswell, she was definitely the one who understood that better than anyone.

"You're right," he apologized as the car drew to a stop. "I don't. But I promise you, I'm going to do my damned best to come back in one piece."

She blinked at that, sitting there in the quiet for a long moment until the sound of the car door opening had her turning to find him with one foot out the door.

"You're coming back?" An odd mixture of hope, longing, disbelief, and suspicion colored her words, prompting him to turn to look at her, a wry smile on his face.

"Why wouldn't I come back? Roswell is my home."

"But I thought, since you're going to meet them, you were going to stay…I mean, it's a pretty big trip and I was sure it was going to just be one way because, you know, you were being so sneaky and you never asked for me to make arrangements back and since I was the one getting you there – "

"Hey!" He interrupted, smiling faintly at her chattering tones that so reminded him of Maria.

"It's okay," he assured her, ducking his head over to lay a kiss across her forehead before pulling back with a grin. "I'm coming back."

"You promise?" Her wide blue eyes were so anxious, so worried. He reached over and rubbed a hand through her tousled hair, softening his smile as he cupped her delicate jaw in his hand.

"I promise." They stared at each other for a few long moment, with her gauging his sincerity before finally releasing her breath on a sigh.

"Go," she instructed, pulling his hand from her face and giving him a faint push. "Before I change my mind and call your sister."

He grimaced at that.

"Remember your promise," he reminded her firmly as he climbed from the vehicle.

"I will," she replied, not sounding the least bit happy about it. She didn't like lying to her friends and she especially didn't like lying to his parents. They were good people.

"Good. Well, then." He hadn't really thought about what he'd say by this point – he hadn't really thought about reaching this point. His leap of logic had consisted from going from Point A to Point B with no stops in between.

He wasn't quite sure if this was a stop, but it was definitely a pause.

"Go," she sounded amused now, her lips turning upwards and her blue eyes dancing with a mischievous spark. "Before you change your mind. Again."

He fought a grin and failed most spectacularly.

"See you, then."

"Yeah, see you." Her anxiety was back, displayed in the way she was delicately chewing on her bottom lip. He nodded, shutting the door and turning away from the car and towards the bus station.

He took one step, then another, and another until he was halfway to the station house when he heard a voice calling behind him.

"What?" He hollered, turning to find her sticking her head out the car window.

"Remember," she yelled back. "If you have any problems or need any help, you know where to find me."

He smiled at that.

"I will," he promised, his grin taking on a sad undertone as he waved his last good-bye, the words escaping him.

He turned around before the sight of her in the front seat of the car drew him back, back to the safety and comfort of his family and his life in Roswell.

He distracted himself, trying not to think as he stood in line at the ticket window. It was one o'clock in the morning, but he still had to stand in a line. People were so impatient to go places these days.

He was impatient, too, but not for the same reason. He wanted to get this over with, to finish this chapter in his life so he could move on to the next one – he had a sister waiting on him, a girlfriend, and a brother, not by blood but by choice.

His heart wrenched slightly at the thought of his girl. She was so special, so beautiful…so strong and fragile, such a contradiction of terms.

He was going to break her heart with this, he knew.

And she wasn't going to wait for him. She had enough spunk, enough dignity and anger and resentment and so many other emotions that she'd move on in an heartbeat just to keep from feeling them.

But she was his girl, always would be. People could ramble on about destiny all they wanted, but written in the stars or not, he was choosing his own, and that meant her.

"Next!" The teller was bored, tired, and probably a half an hour past his regularly scheduled cigarette break, so he endeavored to make this as quick as possible.

"One ticket to Boston," he ordered, sliding the money underneath the window.

"Boston?" the guy accepted the money, eyeing him up and down as his fingers automatically danced across the board.

"Harvard?" he questioned, taking in the kids clean-cut appearance with a grunt as he slid the ticket back to the boy.

The boy grinned wryly back.

"Ipswich, actually," he replied.

**A/N: **Reposting of an old fic. Only have the two prologues and four chapters written. I've been warning people (against the cold-hearted harpy that is my review-whore muse's better wishes) that it'll be a while (if at all) before anything (and I mean _**anything**_) gets updated. Apologies. Reality is a Class-A Bitch.

-Abandon


	2. Prologue  Chase

Prologue: Chase

_Boston, MS_

_August, 1996_

Chase wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve as he studied the girl in front of him.

Their surroundings weren't much – a side room in a condemned warehouse with gaping holes in the roof and a door that was rusted shut. The only way he'd managed to get her inside was through one of the many empty slats where the aluminum siding either rusted away or was torn away.

Her pupils were still really wide, making her eyes take up most of the space on her face. She was shaking, too, either from the cold or from the fear about what almost just happened.

He sniffed, swiping at his nose again as he struggled to think of something to do with her.

He'd seen girls before, he'd had foster sisters, some older, some younger. He knew how to deal with them, but she was a complete mystery. Girls who weren't used to dirty streets, girls who didn't know what to do when a man grabbed them. Girls who were clean and nice and smelled vaguely of lilacs and shampoo.

"Are you okay?" The voice startled Liz out of that cold place she'd gone to when she realized what was happening.

Blinking away the images of the dirty man and his crazy smile, she focused on the boy in front of her.

He was dirty, that was the first thing she really noticed about him. His clothes were too big and stain ridden to the point of complete discoloration.

And he kept wiping his nose on his shirt sleeve, which just plain grossed her out.

"Don't you have tissues or something?" The boy stared at her in such blatant disbelief that she flushed under his regard.

"Sorry," she murmured, ducking her head and averting her eyes. "That was rude."

He took a startled step back, blinking and opening his mouth only to shut it once more. He wasn't used to apologies, and the fact that the girl in front of him would make one only made her that much more of a mystery.

"It's okay," he offered finally, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably. "I'm used to it."

Or, he had been. It'd been a couple of months since he'd had somebody around to remind him how dirty and useless he was.

He'd hated the constant reminders then, but it was different with the girl. She wasn't saying it to be mean, she was just…saying it.

And she'd apologized.

She jerked her head up at that statement, frowning but not saying anything.

"Where…" she trailed off, taking in their surroundings for the first time and he could hear the hitch in her breathing.

"Pier Thirteen," he shot out. "Just outside the city limits. About half a mile away from…"

It was his turn to trail off, wincing as the girl visibly flinched at his unwanted reminder of the back alley where she'd been cornered by one of the many bad guys that roamed the city streets.

He knew to steer clear of them – knew which alleys they frequented and what they looked like enough to either get out of their way or hide. But the girl wasn't street like him and she was too clean to be somebody nobody cared about, which meant there was probably somebody out there looking for a lost little girl.

"I'm Chase," he offered into the stretching silence when it became clear she wasn't going to say anything.

"Chase?" She tilted her head up, peering at him from under a waterfall of silky dark hair.

"Just Chase," he smiled wryly. He'd had plenty of last names over the years, but none of them had stuck, so he settled for Chase.

"Liz," the girl offered, biting on her bottom lip and hugging herself tightly. "Liz Parker."

"Pretty," Chase offered, flushing when she jerked her head up, mouth gaping slightly as she stared at him in surprised confusion.

"Your name," Chase stammered, taking a step back and holding up his hands. "I was talking about your name. I've always liked the name Liz. My first foster mother was named Liz. She was nice."

His blabbering had her smiling, the first genuine lick of warmth in about a half and hour.

"Hey," she smiled crookedly and reached out to give him arm a light shove. "It's okay. I get what you were saying."

"You do?" He looked so relieved she actually managed to giggle a bit before falling silent once more.

"My parents will be looking for me," Liz offered, rubbing her arms against the chill.

"Here," Chase shrugged out of his sweater. He winced when he saw how dirty it was, but held it out anyways. If she didn't take it, she didn't take it, but Liz, his Liz, had taught him enough about manners to make the offer, at least.

"Thanks," Liz shrugged into the oversized adult sweater with a faint sniffle, hugging the dirty clothe close in an effort to stave off a chill.

She was still shaking, though, and Chase, with a muffled curse, reached forward and wrapped her in his arms.

Liz went willingly, practically throwing herself those last few inches as she sniffled and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

"Thank you," she whispered, voice thick with tears and belated relief.

"You're welcome." Chase kept his arms wrapped loosely around her waist, mindful of the dirt that caked his skin and the smallness of the girl in front of him.

"I want to go home," she whimpered into his chest, so forlorn and upset that he instinctively tightened his grip.

"Where do you live?" Chase asked, thinking he knew enough of the city that he could find it. Or at least find a safe place where somebody could help find it. He knew plenty of adults who would take pity on him, and plenty more who would fawn over her. All he had to do was wait for morning.

"Roswell," she sniffed, drawing back. He released her as she sniffled, wrapping her own arms around her middle once more.

"Roswell?" He wracked his brain, trying to find the street in his mental map and falling short. "Is that downtown or in the suburbs?"

"It's in New Mexico," Liz sniffed, tears tracking down her face, as she offered him a faintly bemused grin. "You know, where the aliens crash landed?"

"Aliens?" Chase had enough schooling to do reading and basic maths, but that was it. Most of his foster parents didn't care if he went to school even if he did, and since he left the last home, he didn't dare go back.

He didn't want them finding him.

"You know, 1947? The weather balloon? Just, Roswell?" Liz was frankly befuddled by his lack of knowledge. "You've never heard the story?"

"I'm not exactly living in a library here," Chase offered, motioning to their surroundings. The warehouse was, after all, one of his many haunts.

"Oh." Liz dropped into silence as Chase rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb and contemplated his options.

Since the girl was from out of state, it probably meant tourist. And tourists were hard to pin down. Even if he got a motel from her, most of the places around here were chains, and there were at least three places for each within the city.

"Do you know where you're staying?" He asked, figuring at the least they could check them out one by one until they found her parents.

His hope died when she shook her head, wiping her nose on his sleeve as she watched him through watery eyes.

"We should go to the police."

"What? No! _No!_" His vehemence and volume had her flinching back, ducking her head and huddling more into herself, letting out a choked whimper that immediately made him feel even more like crap.

"I just, I can't go to the cops. Do you know what they do to kids like me?"

Liz sniffed, peering over at him from underneath her eyelashes.

"Kids like you?"

"Street kids, street rats. Orphans," Chase was pacing now, agitated. He glanced over to find her watching the ground, her expression miserable, and swore quietly, jerking his head up and away so he didn't have to face those doe eyes and trembling lip.

"What happened to your parents?" The words were soft in the silence, barely audible, but he heard them clear as day, coming to a dead stop as his world stilled for a moment.

"Dead, maybe," he finally offered, shrugging a shoulder as he faced one of the many open spots on the wall, staring out over the harbor. "I don't know. I was left at the hospital. I've been in foster care and orphanages my whole life."

"Nobody's ever…adopted you?" The words were tentative, uttered carefully as if she was afraid of offending him.

"No." _Except Liz._

Liz had had the paperwork, she'd filed the petitions. She'd been three quarters of the way through the process before she'd died.

He'd been so angry after that, like a wild animal. They'd kept him at the orphanage for six months before somebody had come to take him to foster care. And from there, he'd ended up here.

Eight years old and already jaded. But better jaded then…

"Look, can we just…camp out for the night, then worry about this in the morning?"

Her trembling lip and watering eyes made it clear that wasn't Liz's ideal plan, but she nodded her head and he was so damn grateful, he wrapped his arms around her again and didn't let go.

* * *

He woke up first, his arms wrapped protectively around her, going from a dead sleep to instant awareness and just listening.

Nothing but the sound of waves and the faint bustle of the still active warehouses around them greeted his ears and he let out a soft sigh of relief.

The rusted door made it impossible for most people to get inside, and most of the holes were too small for regular adults, but the people who lived on the streets were far from regular. His first couple of nights out, he'd found out that there was very little that could unmotivated a crackhead or a meth addict.

Morals were lost along with dignity and respect for anything if you lived on the streets long enough.

The girl in his arms stirred and he ran a hand over her shoulder, getting it tangled into her hair in the process.

"Ouch," she murmured when he gave a not so gentle tug to get it loose.

"Sorry," he apologized, pushing himself upright off the pile of tarps they'd set up as their bed.

"It's okay," Liz blinked sleepy eyes as she rose to a sitting position, yawning as she peered at their surroundings once more.

Chase followed her gaze, rubbing the back of his head lightly as he fought a wince. If he hadn't lived those months with Liz, he wouldn't think this was too bad. But Liz had had a civilizing, everlasting impact on him, and he knew that a girl like the one in front of him lived in far better circumstances than he did.

"There's a faucet, in the back. The waters cold, but clean," he offered, in case she was thirsty or wanted to clean up a bit. "I use it to wash up sometimes. There's soap in the pop bottle next to it, and some rags to dry your hands on."

It was about as civilized as he could make it.

Liz murmured something as she shifted from the pile, walking into the back with another yawn.

He was trying to think of something to do with her when she screamed.

"Chase!" She yelled, practically knocking him over as she raced into him, her expression terrified.

"Who the fuck are you?" The man was tall, burly in plastic waders and a flannel top and pissed off expression that scared even Chase.

"Nobody," Chase shot back, pushing Liz behind him with one arm.

"You squatters?" the man sneered at them, looking them up and down with disgust. "Fucking streetrats. Get the hell outta here before I call the cops on your lazy asses! Move!"

Chase was scrambling, pulling Liz along with him as they ducked out of one of the many side holes and onto the main pier.

Navigating through a maze of alleys and side streets and stumbling over unwashed bodies that occupied them, Liz was openly sobbing into his shoulder by the time they reached what he deemed a safe street.

"I want to go home, I want to go home," she was gasping around her cries and she sounded so scared he couldn't do anything or feel anything except his own panic, which only seemed to be alleviated by having her hand in his.

"Okay," he breathed, coming a stop and glancing at both entrances to the alley as he struggled to catch his breath.

"Okay," he repeated, reaching over and pulling Liz more fully into his arms. "We're okay now. We're okay."

She kept shaking, though, and he could feel the front of his shirt getting damp, then wet, as she clung to him.

"I miss my dad," she murmured into his chest. "And my mom. I want to go home."

"Okay, okay," he breathed again, patting her on the back as he struggled to make a decision.

He knew where the police station was, simply because he needed to know so he could avoid it. He could walk her there and send her in. All she had to do was tell them who she was – her parents were probably looking for her.

He could leave her here, let her find her own way, but as quickly as the thought came it vanished.

He wasn't a monster – he had the ability to help and he was going to make sure Bambi, here, made it home okay.

"Alright, here's the plan, we're going to the police station. You go inside and tell them who you are – "

"You're leaving me?" She latched onto his arm tighter than before, her expression terrified. "Please don't. Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone."

"I'm not, Liz, I'm going with you. To the station."

"And after?" She wiped her nose and peered hopefully up at him. "You'll go in with me?"

Words could not describe the amount of panic he had at the very thought, but he squelched it down, gripping her hand tighter as he focused on the only solid goal he had right now: getting her to the police station.

He'd worry about everything else later.

* * *

She wouldn't let go of his hand.

They'd been standing outside of the station for a good fifteen minutes, just two dirty kids loitering. They'd gotten a few looks and there was this one cop on the corner who was watching them with narrow-eyed suspicion that he did not like at all.

"You have to go inside. Just, find a cop and tell them who you are. Tell them you lost your parents and you want to go home. They'll take care of you."

"But what if they don't believe me? What if they think I'm lying? What if they make me leave?"

"They'll believe you," Chase insisted, growing frustrated as the cop finished his cigarette and gave them another look before ducking back inside.

"But what if they don't?" She had Bambi eyes, a purple shirt with flowers, jeans with flowers, and a white sweater with pink lining. She was clean, she had tear tracks on her face, and so looked so out of place on the street that Chase had a hard time believing she'd spent the night there and he'd been with her.

"They will," he assured her, giving their surroundings another nervous glance.

"And if they make me leave?"

"I'll be here," Chase promised, squeezing her hand and offering her a reassuring smile.

"You promise?" Her lower lip was trembling again and he forced himself to keep his feet where they were even as he nodded, his nerves kicking in as the same cop from before made a reappearance, exiting the station with another man. Chase watched them get into a cruiser before turning his attention back to Liz.

"Promise. Cross my heart." He never did understand that phrase, but he knew he wasn't going anywhere. Not until he knew she was safe.

"Okay." She breathed once, chewing on her bottom lip as she eyed the station with fearful eyes.

"Hey," he reached over and gave her another hug. "Don't worry. It's okay. You'll be fine."

Her eyes were watering again and she swiped at them even as she nodded, sniffling a bit more before cautiously, carefully stepping out of the alley.

Chase didn't breath as she crossed the street – didn't breath as she took the first stair, and finally exhaled when she reached the door, glancing back towards him and flashing him a faint smile before pushing her way inside.

He was watching the door so intently, with so much focus, that he didn't notice the man behind him until he was already in his grasp.

* * *

"Parker," the desk sergeant was a nice African American lady with nice eyes and a wide, friendly smile. She'd offered Liz a donut stick from the vending machine and some hot chocolate before sitting her down in a side room and calling her parents.

"Elizabeth, yeah, that's right." The woman was quiet as she listened. "Well, they can stop worrying. We found. She's safe, fine. Hungry, but not hurt."

Liz listened to the woman for a few seconds longer as she ate her food, getting half of it down before pausing with a frown.

Chase hadn't eaten anything either this morning. He was probably hungry too.

She'd save half of it, she decided with a nod. And when her parents came, she'd find Chase and give it to him as a thank you.

That decided, she carefully set the half aside and focused on her hot chocolate.

"Liz?" The friendly lady, Sergeant Mills, spoke from the doorway, that same comforting smile on her face. "Your parents will be here shortly. Would you like anything else to eat?"

Liz perked up, swinging her legs under the table as she nodded.

"Another donut stick?"

"And some crackers, please," Liz asked politely. Everybody liked crackers, she could save those for Chase, too.

* * *

"What're you doing out here, kid?" Chase struggled against the partners grip, teeth bared and expression that of a cornered animal as he eyed the other cop.

His nametag read Hutchins and he didn't look like a bad guy, but looks were often times deceiving and Chase wasn't going to risk trusting this guy.

"Let me go!" He struggled harder, kicking out his legs and grunting at the futility of the gesture.

"Relax, kid. Nobodies going to hurt you. We just want some answers." His tone was soothing, his expression concerned, but Chase couldn't see past his panic.

He renewed his struggles, twisting frantically.

"Shit," he heard the cop behind him mutter right before his grip loosened. It was slight, but Chase took advantage of the slip, ducking underneath his arms and taking off.

* * *

"Liz! Oh my god, Liz! Baby!" Liz smiled with relief as her parents came bustling into the back room, climbing from her chair with a wide smile as she wrapped her arms and legs around her mother.

"Mommy! Daddy!"

"Oh baby, honey! I'm so glad you're okay!" Her father took her from her mother, holding her tight for a long moment.

Now that her parents were here and she knew she was safe, Liz had so much she wanted to tell them.

"Never do that to us again!" Her mother was saying, clutching her close again.

"I'm fine, Mom. Mom, I'm fine," Liz pulled back, smiling at her parents, frowning when she caught sight of the tear tracks on her parents faces.

"I'm okay. There was this boy, Chase –"

"A boy?" Her father's eyes narrowed and his expression went livid as he turned towards the nearest cop. "What boy?"

"She came in alone, sir," one of the officers answered.

"Chase, he's waiting outside. He promised he'd wait for me," Liz babbled. "He kept me safe last night and this morning when the mean man came, he brought me here."

"Mean man? Last night? Liz, honey, where were you? What happened?"

"I got lost," Liz explained, leaning back in her mothers arms. "I turned around and you weren't there so I went outside to look for you, but there was this man and he grabbed me and wouldn't let go and Chase, he came out of one of the alleys and kicked the man until he did and then he grabbed my hand and took me to a warehouse."

"What warehouse?" one of the cops interrupted while Liz was so thoroughly distracted by the story to really think things through.

"Pier thirteen, he said," Liz offered before turning back to her parents. "And we stayed in this office and slept on these tarps and in the morning he told me where to get some water but there was this other mean man and he scared us and threatened us, so Chase and I ran away until we got here. And he promised he'd wait until I was safe."

"Chase, then?" one of the cops was writing something down. "Any last name?"

Liz eyed the man, a sudden sinking feeling in her gut.

"Liz, honey, can you give the nice officer an answer, please?"

"He didn't say," Liz finally offered after a moments silence.

"Can you give us a physical description? Age, weight, height?"

Liz was quiet for a long moment, panicking as she remembered Chase and his reaction to cops.

"I don't want to talk anymore." The cops were giving each other looks, now, looks that had Liz's stomach clenching, especially when her mom started crying again and her dad was clenching his fists as a single tear made it's way down his face.

"Liz, honey, you're safe now. You can tell us what happened and nobody's going to hurt you for it." Mills' smile was strained and Liz ducked away from her, expression tight as she buried her head in her mom's hair.

"I don't want to talk," she insisted, scowling as she gazed out the glass windows of the room wall.

The adults were having a hushed conversation when she heard him.

"Let me go!" Chase was yelling, struggling as the officers dragged him in, one with a grip on his kicking feet and the other holding tight to his struggling upper body.

"I didn't do anything! Let me go!"

"Sorry, kid," one of the officers grunted as Chase gave a particularly harsh tug. "Can't do that."

"Let me go!" Chase was crying now, so scared and so upset that Liz was suddenly angry.

"Stop it!" She yelled, struggling out of her mom's arms, surprising her into dropping her.

"Stop it! Leave him alone!" She screamed, dashing out of the room and around surprised officers until she reached the two that were holding Chase.

"Liz!" Her mother watched, horrified, as her daughter kicked one of the officers in the shin, her hands against her mouth as Liz latched onto the boy they released in their surprise, holding him tight in her arms as she glared at the two men.

"You leave him alone!" She insisted, scowling ferociously as Chase latched onto her, holding her tightly as his panicked gaze darted around the room.

"Liz, honey," her father started forward, his expression a mixture of confusion and appeasement as he held out his hands. "You need to let the boy go."

"No!" Liz shot back, holding tighter to Chase. "He saved me and they're hurting him!"

"He saved you?" Some of the confusion on her father's face cleared up at that. "This is Chase?"

Crying and scared again, this time for Chase instead of herself, Liz simply nodded in response, clinging tighter to the boy, causing him to wince, but he didn't offer any protest, eyeing the entirety of the room with marked suspicion.

"Him?" One of the officers who'd been taking notes arched an eyebrow as he took the kid in.

Dirty clothes, dirty hair, dirt streaked face, and enough tension to put a tightrope to shame traveling across his shoulders. But his grip on that girl was gentle as you please, even though it looked like she was trying to squeeze him to death.

"You have a last name, kid?" Liz was crying in his arms and he was surrounded by cops and all these strange faces, which was making him panic because he had no idea how he was supposed to get out of this, so he answered without thinking.

"Collins," he offered, burying his head in Liz's still clean smelling hair.

"Collins?" One of the men in the back straightened, his eyes narrowing slightly before widening with recognition.

"Holy shit. Chase? Liz's kid?" The cop blinked as he came forward, crouching down in front of them and pushing a chunk of Chase's hair out of his face.

"Hell, kid, where've you been? The Carpenter's reported you missing six months ago." Chase flinched at the mention of his last foster family – they redefined the term monster and if they were going to put him back there…

"We're not gonna put you back there, kid. Kid! Kid! Chase!" Chase jerked back to reality to find the room had emptied somewhat of cops and he had a death grip around Liz, who was lying there passive as you please, one hand balled up against the small of his back, the other holding her wrist as she wrapped him in her grip.

It took him a second to realize he'd been mumbling under his breath, but the cops words brought him hope.

"You're not?" The cop had sympathy and a harder edge of something he couldn't put a name to in his eyes.

"No kid, I promise. You won't go back there."

Chase sniffed, instinctively bringing his arm up to wipe at his nose before hesitating.

"Do you have any tissues?" he finally asked, eliciting a startled curse from somebody somewhere out of his line of sight.

"Yeah, no problem." The cops smile wobbled a bit as he motioned somewhere behind Chase and seconds later a handful of tissues appeared over his shoulder.

He used them to blow his nose and take a few swipes at his tears.

"Are you okay now?" Liz tilted her head back as his grip on her loosened, her Bambi eyes pools of concern. He nodded, giving her a small smile and a quick squeeze before reluctantly releasing her.

"Alright, kid. Let's get you cleaned up a bit," one of the other officers, a female who'd been talking to Mills, offered, reaching down and helping Chase to his feet, Liz scrambling up after them.

"Liz, baby," her mother grabbed her before she could follow, pulling her close to her side. Liz obediently wrapped her arms around her mothers waist, watching Chase until he reached a room at the end of the hall. He hesitated once before entering, glancing back to find her watching him with those damned worried eyes and he offered her another smile before disappearing through the door.

Liz buried her head against her mothers hip and cried.

* * *

_Two months later…_

"He's a good kid," Officer Brooks was telling them as they watched Chase interact with the other kids at the orphanage. "Smart. He caught up to the other kids real fast."

"But?" Brooks sighed as he turned his head to glance at the couple next to him.

"He's been alone for a long time and he has trouble interacting with kids his age. The last time I saw him smile was with…"

"Liz," the woman, Nancy, hugged her husband tighter, biting on her bottom lip as she watched the little boy make a half-hearted effort to throw the basketball through the hoop before giving up altogether, his expression completely blank.

"Your daughter made quite an impression on him," Brooks' lips quirked up in a half smile.

"Yeah, Liz has that ability," Nancy's husband Jeff offered with a wry smile, his eyes locked on the little boy below.

"You've talked to the lawyers, right?" Nancy nodded her head as her husband replied in the affirmative.

"Okay, then, we have your paperwork on file. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

Jeff's head jerked around at that.

"Yes," Nancy replied quickly, placing a soothing hand on her husbands shoulder. "Why wouldn't we?"

"No offense, ma'am, but I've seen people come and go, and I've seen a hell of a lot kids coming rather than going, some of them more than once. I want the two of you to be absolutely sure about this, cause I do not want to see that little boy end up back here. I don't he could take it."

"He's a good kid," Jeff stated gruffly, watching as Chase picked something up from the ground, offering it to two kids, one of whom hastily grabbed it before the two of them scurried away.

"But he's had a rough time of it," Brooks replied. "He has a hard time sleeping, sometimes. He wakes up screaming."

"So does Liz," Nancy murmured, her eyes hungry and longing as she watched Chase take a seat on a picnic bench.

"She screams his name," Jeff muttered, throat tight. "She gets so scared and she keeps asking for him to save her."

"He misses her," Brooks offered, pulling out Chase's file and setting it on the desk between them.

"Please, sit." The Parker's complied, Nancy holding Jeff's hand as Brooks reviewed their petition carefully.

"Well, all the paperwork looks to be in order," Brooks finished scanning the last page, scrawling his own signature down before closing the file with a snap.

"That's it? We can bring him home now?"

"You can bring him to Roswell," Brooks cautioned. "But this is just the first step of the adoption process. You have another six months before the final paperwork can be filled out, and up to a year after that before it'll be finalized. Are you okay with that?"

"Yes," Nancy answered, squeezing Jeff's hands tight as she smiled radiantly up at him.

"We have no intention of letting him go," Jeff promised, smiling back at his wife.

"That's always nice to hear. So," Brooks stood with a smile. "Let's go meet your son."

* * *

The trip to Roswell was surreal for him – he'd traveled within the city of Boston and outside it on occasion, but he'd never crossed state lines and he'd never felt such…peace.

"You know," Jeff Parker spoke from the seat next to him while Nancy slept on his other side, his eyes on the road, expression contemplative. "I've always thought Liz could use a brother, somebody to look out for her."

Chase was quiet for a moment as he studied Jeff Parker.

He'd talked with the man more than a dozen times since he'd saved his daughter. They'd gone out to eat, had movie nights. It was a bit awkward when Liz wasn't there, but Chase had decided that he liked her parents that – if he ever did get adopted – he wouldn't mind having people like them for parents.

And now they were taking him to Roswell, to live with them and be a part of their family and it was just…surreal.

"I've always thought it'd be nice to have a sibling." Course, he'd wanted brothers, but a sister was okay. And Liz, with her Bambi eyes and soft heart was gonna need somebody to look out for her.

"And, you know, I've always wanted a son to do son things with, like sports." Chase loved sports, but he loved baseball and swimming the best. They'd gone to the Y a couple of times and he couldn't remember being happier than he had been when Liz and him had been splashing each other and dunking each other under the water.

"That's cool," Chase licked his suddenly dry lips, ducking his head as he spoke. "I've always wanted a father."

A/N: I took the day off from school with nausea and a sore throat so I could bring this lovely gem to you. Enjoy and review, please.


	3. Secrets, Part I

Timeline:

According to Roswell, the gang was mostly born around 1983, with the pod squad emerging around 1988 or 1989. Since the Covenant world has them being born in 1988, rearranging things so that Chase is a year older than Liz makes it so Liz was born in '89, Chase in '88. I'm making Liz the youngest of the Roswellians, so everybody else was either born in '88 or '89 as well.

Chapter One: Secrets

_Lake Arthur, NM_

_July, 2001_

"Again." Chase gave his sister a dirty look as she crossed her arms and stared at him from across the room.

"It's not going to turn out any differently than it did the half a dozen times before," he scowled, freaked and frustrated to the point of out and out annoyance at his little sister.

"Again," she insisted, leaning back against the cubbies that lined the back porch of their grandmother's cabin.

"You do know what the definition of insanity is, right?" Chase shot back even as he turned his head around and focused once more on the boulder in front of him.

It rose, slowly, from the ground, hovering about a foot high before he gently and carefully settled it back down right into the position it was in before.

"See?" Chase turned to find Liz staring at him, blank faced.

"What?" He asked, glancing down his body to make sure everything was still in place before looking back up her, hands clenching and unclenching from sheer nerves.

"This is so…" Chase swallowed as Liz trailed off, her eyes going glassy for a moment before refocusing in on him.

"What? What is it? Weird? Strange? Highly abnormal? What?"

"Cool," Liz interrupted his panic fest with a curved smile and laughing eyes.

"Not funny, Bambi," he grumbled without any real heat, his annoyance with her fading under the weight of pure relief.

It'd been almost two weeks since he'd woken up doing the whole Sabrina thing, floating two feet off his bed and waking up with the worst case of vertigo ever. He'd been sick as a dog for two days, so bad their mom had threatened to take him to the hospital.

It'd been a pretty crappy birthday, but he'd had worse.

His dad had clapped him on the shoulder when he'd made his way down to the diner for dinner the second night.

"It's a good sign, son. The harder you go into being a teenager, the smoother the way out." If that was the case, Chase was looking forward to a couple of easy years ahead of him.

The weird things had started happening a couple nights later. He'd wish for something, and it'd appear. At first, he'd chalked it up to absent-mindedness, but when the newest version of his favorite game showed up out of nowhere, literally, right before his eyes…

He'd frantically wished it away and it was gone seconds later, but the faint tingling in his fingers lasted for another hour or two.

He'd experimented since then, taking stock of what he could and couldn't do.

The telekinesis thing was, by far, one of his favorites. He'd used it casually to find the remote control or grab something from across the room, but only when he was alone.

Liz was the first person he'd shown any of this too and depending on her reaction, she had the potential to be the last as well.

"It's cool," Liz reiterated, but with a frown. "But dangerous."

Chase blinked.

"What? How?"

"Well, for starters, this is Roswell."

"Yeah? So?" Liz rolled her eyes.

"Five years and you still don't know about the crash?"

"We live above an alien themed diner. Of course I know about the crash. I just don't understand what that has to do with me."

"You're different, Chase," Liz stated as gently as possible, reaching over to touch his arm after he flinched away from that realization.

"No, Chase, it's not a bad thing, but it has the potential to be…dangerous."

"I would never hurt you," Chase turned to face her, expression tight. "Or anybody."

"I know, I know," Liz soothed. "But there are people out there who wouldn't care about that. All they'd care about is the fact that you are different. You've seen the alien autopsy stuff."

Chase snorted, but wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants, swallowing as his throat tightened and breathing became an issue in the face of his thundering heartbeat and sudden panic.

"Yeah?"

"I just don't want that to happen to you."

"But I'm human, Liz. The same as you. Why would they do that to me?"

Liz was chewing on her bottom lip, a sure sign that something was upsetting her.

"Liz? What happened? Did you see something? Did I do something weird?"

"You mean weirder than levitating a two ton rock twelve inches off the ground?" Liz's smile took some of the sting out of her words, but there was enough fear between the two of them that you could practically see it.

"Your eyes, Chase," Liz bit her bottom lip once before continuing. "They turned black."

"What, like my pupils dilated over my irises?"

"More like over your entire eye. And before that there's this flash, like fire. You don't feel it?"

"I feel a tingle," Chase offered, frowning at this new development. Up until this moment, he hadn't been away that this…power did anything physically to him aside from the tingling.

"What kind of tingle? Foot fell asleep, or static shock?"

"Like I fell asleep on my hands," Chase replied.

"Does it hurt?" Liz frowned, concerned. Ever since they were kids and that first day and night together they'd been notoriously protective of one another. It was a running joke since third grade that if you hurt Liz, Chase would beat you up and vice versa.

It'd made for some interesting after school chats for their parents, but kids had more or less learned to leave the Parker children alone, so that had all but died out.

"Not really," Chase replied. "It itched at first, but it's kind of like…a new sweater. You just have to break it in."

"And how much have you broken this in?" Liz's voice was suspicious and Chase offered her a cocky smile.

"Why? Wondering if I'm responsible for Robbie Coragan's sudden inability to walk straight around you?" Liz didn't say anything and Chase's smile widened.

"Sorry, Bambi, but that's all you." Liz's scowl made Chase laugh only for an instant before the reality of their situation settled over them once more.

"I wish you'd stop calling me that," Liz muttered with no small amount of irritation. It was a pet name that had stemmed, again, from their first meeting. Chase had always told her that it was her Bambi eyes that kept him from ditching her that night.

"Do you know what limits you have?"

"I know I can fly."

"What?" A startled Liz Parker was a sight to see.

"I woke up levitating above my bed. I've tried it a couple of times since. It's not bad."

That wasn't to say he particularly appreciated it. He liked his feet on the ground, thank you very much.

"Could you…Could I?" Liz swallowed, head cocked to the side in open curiosity. "Could you make me fly?"

"I don't know," Chase shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, I could try, but I just…I don't know how this thing works. I don't even know what it is, and I don't want risk using it on you and hurting you."

"You used it on the rock and on yourself without hurting anything. Just try it once. If anything goes wrong, I'll tell you."

"But – "

"Chase, you have to see how far this thing goes. It could be limited to just you and your surroundings. Maybe it won't even work on me."

"You just want to see if you can fly," Chase accused, but with a faint smile.

"Maybe." Liz smiled back, taking a step away and extending her arms to either. "So try it."

His reluctance to test his powers on her showed, but she waited patiently as he breathed carefully, concentrating until he felt that familiar tingle.

There was a startled gasp and he jerked his head upright to find Liz hovering several feet off the floor, her expression equally parts flabbergasted, delighted, and…nauseous.

"Okay, you can put me down now," Liz murmured, her olive tinged skin getting slightly paler with each passing second.

Chase hastily summoned the tingle back, dropping her to the ground so suddenly she kicked up a cloud of dust on impact, tumbling backwards with a startled yip.

"Liz!"

"I'm okay! I'm okay!" She brushed aside his concerned hands, levying herself to a sitting position with a smile.

"Okay, so we've established that your powers work on other people."

"I guess so." Chase waited for his breathing to slow before getting to his own feet, hauling her up after him.

"So what now? What am I supposed to do with my…powers? Save the world?"

"What, like Superman?" Liz fidgeted with her t-shirt for a second before shaking her head.

"No, it's too dangerous. Besides, we don't know if bullets would bounce off of you and I do not want to test that theory."

"Okay, me neither. So no super-heroics for me. How about your own personal genie? I can conjure up just about anything out of thin air."

"That's impossible," Liz gave him a droll look, shifting into little Miss Science Queen before his very eyes. "Everything comes from something. You probably just…transport it."

"Great, so now I'm a Trekkie." Liz rolled her eyes at his flat attempt at humor.

"No, I think you should practice with your powers, but keep them a secret."

"Even from mom and dad?"

Liz wanted to say no – wanted to tell Chase that it was okay to tell their parents, but she couldn't.

"I want to," Chase broke into her thoughts. "But…"

"But you're scared of what might happen." Liz nodded, reaching over to wrap her arms around his waist. "Me too."

"So we keep this a secret, then? Just between us?"

"Just between us." Liz agreed, hugging her brother closer.

"So," Chase broke away, smiling down at her. "Want to watch the latest season of X-files on DVD?"

"You bought it?"

"No, but I can get it."

"But that's stealing, Chase." His sister – the paragon of virtue.

"Tell you what, we watch it, and I'll return it immediately afterwards."

Liz narrowed her eyes at him and he sighed, holding up his hands in defeat.

"Alright, alright! A&E it is. But I swear, if that stupid show about pyramids is on again, I'm conjuring up an X-box."

"Chase!"

"Kidding, Bambi! I was just kidding!"

* * *

_Roswell, NM_

_Frazier Woods_

_August, 2002_

"Seriously, man? I mean, seriously?" Chase stood behind his sister, expression tight as Liz struggled to keep herself in front of him.

"Would you stop pushing already?" He finally snapped, his eyes flashing and Liz disappearing only to reappear directly behind him with a startled yelp.

"Whoa!" Kyle Valenti took another step back, away from the two of them, hands held out in front of him as if to ward off a blow.

"Kyle – " Chase started, taking a step forward, hands held in front of him, ready to pacify his best friend. Or former best friend, depending on how the day went.

He'd gotten sloppy with his powers. They'd gone on the Father's Day Camping weekend and his dad had forgotten to pack their favorite snacks, so he'd thought nothing of conjuring them up, careful to make sure he specified the ones from home and not taking ones from a supermarket or somebody else.

Only, he was used to being alone when he used, he'd forgotten to check his surroundings.

To say Kyle was surprised was a drastic understatement.

Chase had befriended the other boy his first day in school. It'd been close to Mother's day and Kyle had been getting picked on because his mom had up and left them the year before.

He'd gotten into a fight with a bigger kid and had been getting his ass mercilessly beat before Chase had stepped in.

Chase was probably the scrawniest eight year old anybody had ever seen, but he knew how to defend himself.

He'd gotten a one week suspension, two separate lectures from his parents, a punch to the shoulder from Liz, and Kyle's everlasting hatred…for at least a week.

When he'd gotten back to school, though, Kyle had taken to sitting with him. At first they did nothing, just sat and ate. Later, they hung out on the playground with Liz and as the years progressed they started doing more and more together. Kyle had even convinced Chase to try out for the football team.

And now Kyle was staring at him like he was some sort of freak of nature which, in a sense, he was.

But that didn't make it hurt any less.

"Don't!" Kyle reiterated, throwing his hands in front of him once more, stopping Chase dead in his tracks. "Just, stay there! Don't come any closer!"

"Kyle," Liz spoke from behind him. "It's okay, it's just Chase."

"Is it? Are you sure? Cause it doesn't seem like the Chase I know!"

"Really?" Chase glanced down at himself before raising his gaze to Kyle. "I don't seem any different than I was an hour ago."

"Yeah, well, an hour ago, things weren't just appearing out of thin air!" There was an hysterical edge to Kyle's words that had Liz pausing in her struggles to really look at the other boy.

"Kyle," she spoke slowly, peering around her brother carefully. "It's okay. Chase isn't going to hurt you."

"Oh, really? And how would you know that?"

"Because he's my brother," Liz shot back shortly. "And your best friend!"

"He's a freak!" Kyle hissed, face blanching of color when Chase flinched as if his words had struck of physical blow.

"Screw you!" Liz shot back, maneuvering herself in front of her brother with a snarl. "He's the same as you!"

"Like hell!" Kyle yelled. "I am nothing like him! Nothing!"

"Kyle, watch out!" Chase saw the vine, saw Kyle take that step back that sent him tumbling backwards over the edge of the cliff they were standing next to.

"Kyle!" Liz and Chase darted forward, Chase already using even before they reached the edge.

Kyle, wide eyed and pale faced stared up at them as he floated a hundred feet off the ground, trembling like the leaves scattering around him.

"Help," he whimpered, reaching out with one hand toward them.

"Chase, be careful," Liz cautioned, setting one hand against her brother's shoulder as she reached out towards Kyle with the other. "There's a lot of edges here."

"I know," Chase replied, concentrating on carefully drawing Kyle closer to him. He didn't have a whole lot of practice with levitating people – Liz didn't particularly like it and neither did here and there wasn't anybody else he could test his powers on without them caring. So he'd gotten pretty good at lifting in animate objects, but the few times he'd levitated Liz, he'd learned the movement played a key factor.

The more something moved, the harder it was to be careful with it.

"You need to hold still, Kyle," Liz was saying on his left, her fingertips stretching to reach for Kyle's hand. "If you move, Chase might drop you."

"Chase?" Kyle licked his dry lips, turning his head to peer at his friend. "You're doing this?"

"Yes," Chase hissed back, biting his bottom lip as he concentrated on carefully maneuvering Kyle closer.

Kyle's breathing was labored, his fists clenching and unclenching as he was carefully, gently, inch by inch maneuvered back towards them.

"Careful," Liz cautioned as Kyle gave a dangerous dip that left him whimpering.

"Got it," Chase reassured her, breathing shallowly as he tugged Kyle closer and closer until…

"Got him!" Liz tugged Kyle those last few inches back onto the cliff.

"Oh thank God," Kyle grabbed at Liz's hand, clenching it tightly as he struggled to catch his breath in the circle of her arms.

"It's okay, Kyle. You're okay. Chase saved you. You're going to be fine."

Kyle blindly reached out, grabbing Chase's hand with his free hand, peering up at his friend, who was just as pale as he was.

It took a few breaths, but he managed to get it out.

"You're some kind of super hero, aren't you?"

With twenty minutes taking twenty years off his life, Chase did the only thing he could do.

He laughed.

A/N: Shortish chapter. I just wanted to give people a little background to set up for the main event, which should start up in the next chapter. I'll try to update shortly. I want to have this particular story done within a month or two so I can get the other one's out in short order. I basically know where this one and the next are going to go, but I have two more after that that need work.

As always, if you like it, tell me. Questions? Comments? Flames? I accept all. Motivation comes from every corner.


	4. Secrets, Part II

A/N: So I've introduced you to Chase, now it's time to meet the Pod Squad.

Chapter Two: Secrets, Part II

_**September 23**__**rd**_

_I'm Liz Parker and just when I thought my life couldn't get any stranger, I died. That was five days ago and life hasn't been the same since._

_Crashdown Diner_

_September 18__th_

"He's staring at you again." Liz chewed on her bottom lip as Maria hovered just behind her left shoulder, eyeing the occupants of a booth with no small amount of enthusiasm.

"Let it drop, Maria," Liz insisted, totaling up a customer's bill, carefully rechecking it against her calculator before lifting her head to look at her friend. "I'm dating Kyle, remember?"

"Please," Maria snorted, waving that off with her hand. "Kyle's like your brother. The two of you dating is kind of…creepy."

Liz ducked her head again, chewing on her lip and saying nothing. Kyle and her had sort of segued into a relationship by complete accident before the summer and the two of them were kind of stuck.

On the one hand, Kyle was her brother's best friend. Her breaking up with him could put a strain on that relationship. On the other hand, Liz was Chase's sister, him breaking up with her would definitely put a strain on that relationship.

So until she and Kyle decided what they were going to do to protect Chase, they were more or less stuck.

And Max Evans wasn't helping matters.

He'd always been a peripheral in her life. He'd been in the same third grade class as her and Chase along with his sister, Isabel. She remembered that her parents had been less inclined to fight Chase's desire to stay in the same grade as her when she pointed out that Isabel, who was older than Max, was in the same grade as her brother.

They'd sort of grown up together, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that Liz had really noticed him.

It wasn't anything big, no flashes of light or rolling thunder to announce the epiphany of her attraction to one Max Evans, but it was there, solid and real, and she was doing her best to ignore it.

"Table 8 is ready for their check," Maria finally stated when it became clear that Liz was completely ignoring her. "You got it finished?"

"Right here," Liz reached under her pile and pulled a slip out, handing it to Maria for initial inspection.

"Saturn Rings, Will Smith, Sigourney Weaver…yep, that's them." Maria snorted as she raised her gaze to look at the two occupants of the table, a geeky guy and a slightly less geeky girl who had been pestering the two of them for details about the Roswell crash since they'd first been seated.

"Bet you they're lousy tippers."

"Maria," Liz twisted her head and gave her friend a vaguely annoyed look.

"Okay, alright. Relax, Chica. Just because you're having an illicit mental lo-_ove_ affair with Tall Dark and Brooding, doesn't mean you get take out all that frustration on the poor huddled masses." Maria affected a pout, dancing out of the way as Liz reached out to give her friend a smack.

"Maria!" Liz protested, smiling and shaking her head as Maria laughed loudly on her way to her table.

Lifting her gaze away from her friend, Liz found herself caught in the most beautiful set of brunette eyes she'd ever seen.

Chase called her Bambi, but Max Evans had her beat hands down in that department. He had the most soulful eyes and every time she accidentally locked gazes with him, it was like being electrified from the inside out.

He made her tingle in an unbelievably good way.

A sudden commotion had her jerking her gaze away toward the source of the noise.

Liz knew that sensory input traveled from the sense to the brain in a matter of milliseconds. She knew the brain processed it just as fast, sending back information concerning the appropriate response. The whole process took seconds, but a single second can sometimes feel like an eternity.

When somebody has a gun, eternity is an awfully long time.

Her brain was screaming at her, demanding that she do something, but she just couldn't move. Fear had her glued in place and all she could think was _Oh God, oh God, oh God._

There was a loud bang and even before the echo faded, Liz found herself on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and not really feeling anything.

_At least I ducked,_ she found herself thinking with a faint smile as the world seemed to erupt into one screaming mass of sound.

She could hear Maria, practically sobbing somewhere above her, and other people talking, louder and louder. It hurt and one hurt seemed to move into another until she became aware of the pinching pain that seemed to be radiating from her stomach.

_Ow, ow, ow, Owwwww!_

Oh, God, it _hurt_.

"Liz! Liz! _Liz!_" A new voice broke through her haze of pain and she opened her eyes to half slits.

"You need to look at me, Liz. This won't work unless you look at me!"

_What?_

She opened her eyes just a little bit wider, trying to focus on the speaker.

"Good, good, Liz. Just look at me. Focus on me."

She could see him, and she recognized those eyes. Those beautiful, beautiful eyes.

"Pretty," she croaked out, trying to reach up with her hand to touch his face and ending up confused when all she could do was get her fingers to twitch.

"Shhh, Liz. It's going to be okay."

_Then why do you look so scared?_ Liz wondered, but the thought ended abruptly in a flash of light.

It was white, the green, then the palest of purples. It shifted, transcending comprehension to the point where she could only watch, her body frozen in some kind of suspended rapture, her breath struck in her lungs on one last desperate inhale.

And then there was a gasp, not her own, and suddenly she was breathing, wide eyed and full of surprise as she stared up at a sweating, pale-faced Max Evans.

"You're alright now," he breathed, smiling nervously.

"Keys, Maxwell!" A new voice broke in, drawing Liz's gaze towards Max's best friend and steady companion, Michael. He'd been sitting at the booth with Max when the gun…

Her breath was strangled in her chest as she glanced down at herself, her eyes wide and what blood was left in her face draining as she saw the blood.

"You slipped, fell – broke the ketchup bottle on your way down," Max cracked the Heinz glass bottle against the counter top, dumping it's contents on her uniform and tossing the bottle away before grabbing the counter, hesitating before pulling himself up.

"Don't say anything, please," he breathed, eyes wide with panic as he pushed his way through the crowd.

She was on her feet, hand clutching her dress closed, staring after him as he drove away with absolutely no idea what had just happened beyond one simple fact: Max Evans had just saved her life…and she had no idea how he did it.

* * *

"I'm fine," Liz reassured a hovering Chase as she stuffed the dress into her backpack.

"You were shot, Liz; that's about as far from fine as a person can get. God!" He paced as he tugged at his hair in belated panic. "I should have been there!"

"I'm fine, Chase!" Liz snapped, turning to face him, face a mask of frustration. "See?"

She raised her shirt slightly, intending on showing him the smooth skin of her abdomen.

"Just fine. No holes, no bullets, just skin." Chase stared at her stomach in dumbfounded shock.

"Uh, Liz?"

"What?" Liz asked, confused by his sudden shift in demeanors.

"You have a hand print on your stomach…and it's glowing."

"What?" She turned to the mirror and there it was – bright and shiny, glowing like there was no tomorrow.

"…the hell?" Chase moved behind her, carefully placing his hand over the impression, hovering a few centimeters above her skin, before letting it drop to his side and raising his gaze to hers.

"I've healed you before and nothing like this has ever happened."

"You've never healed a bullet wound before," Liz pointed out, distracted by the print on her stomach and the memory of the only person who could have put it there. "Maybe this was what happens with big injuries."

"What about his eyes?" Chase asked, taking a step back and tapping a finger against the side of his pant leg. "Were they black? Did you see any fire?"

"I saw…lights," Liz offered, frowning as she poked at the hand. It didn't feel like anything. That is, it didn't hurt. When she pressed on it, she felt the usual pressure but that was it. It was just like somebody had painted a hand on her stomach. It wasn't doing anything, it was just…there.

"Lights?" Chase paused and blinked. "What kind of lights?"

"Bright lights," Liz supplied.

"Like lights at the end of the tunnel?" Liz was shaking his head before Chase had even finished the sentence.

"No, it was…bright," she shrugged her shoulders as Chase gave a frustrated snort. "It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before."

"Give me a basis of comparison," Chase finally stated. "Something you have seen before."

Liz was quiet for a long moment as she thought about what she was going to say.

"You remember those films we used to watch, up at Grandma's cabin?"

"The alien films?" Chase clarified.

"Yeah, you remember that one series, with the little girl?"

"Yeah?"

"It was like one of those ships. Just, unbelievably…bright."

"So…aliens, then." Liz arched an eyebrow at her brother.

"Aliens? Seriously?" Chase held up his hands defensively. He, of all people, knew Liz's position on the so-called Alien Invasion. She was one of the biggest proclaimers of the Roswellian hoax despite the fact that they worked in an alien themed café and their livelihood literally depended on keeping the legend alive.

"I'm just saying, it's the closest description to what you saw."

"It was a bunch of lights, Chase," Liz let her shirt drop back over the hand print as she shot her brother a knowing look. "It didn't mean anything. Probably just neurons flashing in my head."

"Neurons, right," Chase stuck his tongue between his teeth, biting down as he studied his sister carefully.

"Right," he repeated, shaking his head with the tightest of smiles before reaching over and drawing her into a hug. "But you're okay now, right?"

"I'm fine," Liz wrapped her arms around her brothers waist, breathing in his familiar scent and letting an instinctive calm overtake her. Chase was her rock and anchor – he was always there for her and she'd always be there for him.

He was the one solid thing in her life she'd clung to since she was seven and she clung to him now because something big was happening and the world was changing and he was still there, still solid and still her brother.

Chase let his chin rest on top of his sisters head as he stared at the slip of fabric dangling from underneath the flap of Liz's backpack.

Something weird had happened to his sister. It had saved her life, for which he was grateful, but he, of all people, knew that there were consequences to actions.

Max Evans had taken action that had saved Liz's life, but Chase was preparing himself for the consequences cause when they hit, Liz was going to be directly in their line of fire. And no way was he letting anything hurt his baby sister…ever.

* * *

It was strange going to school the day after you were shot and nearly died, but Liz did it because she didn't have any excuse not to.

Her first class of the day, biology, was one she had with Max Evans and she waited, with breath frozen in her lungs, for his arrival.

The bell rang and the seat next to her remained empty.

Five minutes ticked by as the teacher launched into her lecture and Liz counted every second of them with tapping fingers.

The door opened half past the five minute mark and her fingers froze in mid tap as she turned to face Max Evans.

He started forward, head down and eyes firmly fixated on the floor, raising them when he reached his seat and catching her gaze as his body froze.

"Mr. Evans," their teacher greeted with annoyance, her voice drawing Liz's attention away from Max long enough for him to unfreeze and take his seat.

"As I was saying," the teacher continued, purposely looking at Max before turning her attention to the rest of the class. "We've spent the last week talking about Geneis and Phylum, and now we're going to get a little more specific and talk about the difference between species. For today's experiment you'll be working with your lab partner. Everyone on the right prepare a slide with the vegetable sampling, everyone on the left, take a toothpick and get a sample from your cheek."

Max, who had been chewing lightly on the end of his eraser, went still so suddenly Liz paused in her slide preparation to turn and look at him.

"Can I get a bathroom pass?" He blurted out, earning him several strange looks.

"Awfully high maintenance today, aren't we?" The teacher arched an eyebrow but nodded her head.

Setting his pencil down with obvious relief, Max left the room as quickly as he'd arrived.

Frowning, annoyed that her plans to talk to Max had been interrupted, Liz finished preparing her slide and set about preparing his, using her own cheek cells for it. The routine of science was soothing to her and she worked carefully for a couple of minutes to fill out the lab sheet in front of her.

She finished writing the last answer, chewing on the eraser as she reviewed her work before setting the pencil down with a sigh.

It rolled on the table, coming to rest against Max's books and Liz, following it's movement, found herself staring at Max's pencil.

Cells from her mouth were now on her pencil because of her chewing, so cells from his mouth would be on his pencil…

She was moving before she could give it much of a second thought.

Some water to get the cells, some iodine to stain them, and one slide later, she peered into her microscope and fought the urge to hyperventilate.

* * *

_Not possible, not possible, not possible…_

The mantra echoed in her head over and over as she paced the edge of the courtyard at lunch.

She'd been jumpy and fidgety all day to the point where Maria had decided to ditch her for Alex until she calmed the hell down.

She didn't much notice, though, with most of her attention on the door where Chase usually emerged from. Sometimes he had lunch with her, sometimes he had lunch with Kyle, and sometimes they all had lunch together, but he always came out of that door.

And today was no exception.

"Liz?" Chase blinked at the sudden bright light and the equally sudden presence of his little sister standing in front of him.

"I need to talk to you." Liz didn't bother to wait for a reply, grabbing his hand and yanking him around right back the way he came, much to his surprise and confusion.

"Whoa! Whoa! Liz! What the hell is going on?" Chase peered around as they entered the biology lab, staring blankly at his sister as she pulled a microscope from the shelf and set it on the counter with a bang.

"Rub this along the inside of your cheek," she instructed, handing him a toothpick.

"What?" Chase took the toothpick and stared at it dumbly for a long moment before turning his attention back to Liz. "What's going on? What's this about?"

"Please, Chase, just do it. For me?" Her eyes were so wide and she looked so upset that Chase obediently rubbed the toothpick inside of his mouth, holding it out for her to take and watching as she quickly prepared a slide.

"What do you need this for, Liz? What's going on?"

"They're normal," Liz spoke, not really answering him as she peered into the slide in front of her.

"Yeah? So? Aren't they supposed to be normal?" Liz pulled back from the slide and ran her fingers through her hair as she stared at her brother.

"I don't know. I mean, I never really thought to check, you know? I just kind of assumed that they were."

"And now that we've established that they are…" Chase trailed off, hopping up on a lab stool as he waited for her to fill in the blanks.

"Look at them," Liz stepped away and motioned to the microscope.

"O-kay." Chase was quite firmly placed in the land of confusion, but the best course of action he could think of in the moment. Liz usually had a point and when she got like this, it was usually best to humor her until she made it.

"Normal pink cells, right?" Liz stated from her position next to him.

"Normal pink cells," he agreed, pulling back and twisting his head slightly to look at her. "Liz…"

"Just wait!" Liz held up one hand as she reached into her coat pocket with the other, pulling out another slide that had Chase arching an eyebrow.

"You stole a slide from the science department? One near death experience and suddenly you're a rebel without a cause?" His attempts at humor fell flat as Liz positioned the new slide.

"Look," Liz instructed, flat voiced with a hand gesture of impatience.

Chase frowned, but looked.

"Holy shit," he swore, pulling back slightly to look over at Liz, who had her arms crossed around herself protectively.

"What the hell is it?" He asked, bending down to take another look.

"Max Evans," Liz replied, bringing her thumb up to her mouth as she gnawed on the nail.

"What?"

"I got those cells from Max Evans," Liz dropped her hand and plopped her ass down on the stool Chase had just vacated.

"You got the cells from…"

"The inside of his cheek," Liz stared woodenly at the tabletop. "They were on his pencil and I made a slide and that was just…there."

She made a sweeping hand gesture and Chase found himself whistling as he turned to lean against the lab table in complete surprise.

"Whoa. So…Max Evans…"

"Yeah." There really wasn't anything Liz could say or add to that.

"Do you know what this means?" Chase tilted his head to look at her, expression contemplative now as he mulled over the new possibilities this presented.

"No," Liz shook her head, grabbing the slide from the microscope and slipping it back into her pocket. "I don't. But I will."

She left the room without putting anything away, a sure sign of her agitation. Chase carefully replaced everything in its proper position while he struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation for this… thing.

One thing was for sure, this was the second time Max Evans had popped up as an oddity in his sisters life. Third time may be the charm, but Chase had every intention of being there.

* * *

"They're watching you again." Michael was paranoid on the best of days, but today he had a reason.

"Just ignore them," Max replied, ducking his head as he dipped his fries into Tabasco sauce and popped them into his mouth.

"It's kind of hard to do that when the possibility of exposure is looming over our heads," Michael shot back, eyeing Chase Parker carefully before turning his attention back to Max.

"Liz isn't going to tell anyone."

"Yeah? Then why's her brother glaring daggers at your back?" Max said nothing. "Yeah, that's what I thought – little Miss Know-It-All can't keep a secret to save our lives. We have to do something, Maxwell, before she tells anybody else."

"Do something?" Max jerked his head up and to the side, staring at Michael with a suddenly sharp gaze. "Like what? Kill them?"

Michael shifted, rolling his head uncomfortably as he snagged his own fry from the pile in front of them.

"No, that's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying, Michael? How else are we supposed to keep them quiet?"

Michael was silent, agitated as he shifted again before abruptly straightening.

"Look, I don't care how you do it, but fix this, Maxwell. Before I have to."

"Michael. Michael!" Max scowled as the temperamental boy stormed away without so much as a backward look.

Across the cafeteria, Chase followed the explosive exit of Max's best friend with a thoughtful expression, turning his attention to the other boy and catching his eye. Max Evans stared at him for a moment before dropping his own gaze back to his fries, fidgeting with them for a few moments before dropping the one in his hand and getting to his feet.

His exit was quiet in contrast to Michael's, but Chase didn't miss a single detail.

He especially didn't miss the petite brunette who disappeared through the door after him.

* * *

"…that we just go back to the bio lab now, so that I can take a sample so that I can see what I'm thinking is wrong, you know? That I got the wrong cells..."

"You didn't." Max's simple proclamation had Chase pausing in the doorway, hesitating as he watched Liz blink her wide eyes up at Max in barely hinged panic.

"Am I interrupting something?" He asked, casually strolling into the room, keeping his eyes steady on Max even as Liz jumped, startled at his sudden appearance.

"No, nothing. I was just asking Max about the Bio lab. I think I may have made a mistake, earlier. You know. Plant cells instead of his. Maybe you ate some fruit for breakfast? Something green?"

She was grasping at straws, her hands weaving frantic patterns in the air as her gaze jumped from Max to Chase and back again.

"I didn't," Max confessed, eyeing Chase worriedly. "And you didn't make a mistake."

"But Max, those cells…I checked and double checked and they weren't human."

"I know." Max was taking a big risk, that much he knew. He trusted Liz instinctively, he could feel her in his gut, a warm steady pressure that brought him nothing but comfort.

But Chase…Chase freaked him out. That same gut feeling that made him want to trust Liz cautioned him against Chase.

"So, help me out here, then, Max. I mean, what…what are you?" Chase moved to stand behind his sister, eyeing Max with a cool gaze.

"Yeah Max, what are you?"

"It's…complicated." Max's gaze swerved slightly to the right as he struggled to come up with an explanation.

"Uncomplicate it, then." Chase stated, crossing an arm over Liz's shoulders as he challenged Max to come up with an explanation with his eyes.

"I…I can't. I'm sorry, just…I can't." Shaking his head and ducking out of the room, Max ignored Liz calling his name as he struggled to contain his panic.

* * *

Max Evans didn't show up in any of his classes for the rest of the day. His sister, Isabel, sat in front of Chase in English and she never once took her gaze off of his seat, her foot tapping out a nervous rhythm as she visibly struggled to hide her panic.

_Justifiable panic, _Chase found himself thinking as he leaned back in his chair and watched her impassively.

He knew the feeling. He remembered the cold terror that had run through his veins when Kyle had accidentally stumbled across his abilities almost three years ago, and that was just one person.

And here Max was in that same situation, only it was two people instead of one, and he didn't have that same relationship history that Chase and Kyle had.

"Hey," Chase greeted her as the bell rang right after class, positioning himself in front of her so she couldn't duck around him. "We need to talk."

* * *

"You're sure you're okay?" Liz nodded, chewing on her bottom lip as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her expression pure nervous as she glanced left and right.

"Mmmm, hmmm, fine." Liz gave her boyfriend a half-hearted smile that even Michael could tell wasn't the least bit sincere.

He'd been following them all evening on one of the lamest dates he'd ever seen. Dinner as Taco Bell, followed by the local slasher flick that was not worth a dollar let alone six, and through the streets of Roswell as the two of them talked about every lame subject under the sun.

And here they were, at the back door to the café, maintaining their awkward conversations and setting his teeth on edge.

"So, tomorrow? Sit with me at lunch?"

"Uh, huh," Liz smiled tightly as Kyle bent over, placing a chaste kiss against her cheek before taking a step back.

"Okay."

"Okay." Liz's smile became a little more genuine as she reached up to grab the key on the top of the doorway. She was so short that she had to strain, her shift lifting halfway up her stomach before she managed to snatch the key.

"What the hell…Liz. Your stomach…it's glowing."

"Huh? What?" Liz dropped her hand, reaching up and tugging on the hem of her sweater as she peered anxiously at Kyle.

"Your stomach…what the hell is that?"

"Oh, that," Liz let out a nervous bark of laughter. "Chase. We were…experimenting."

Kyle's eyebrow rose.

"Chase put a glowing handprint on your stomach?" Kyle sounded vaguely bemused and not the least bit surprised, which only confused Michael all the more.

Why would Chase put a glowing handprint on his sister's stomach? And how?

_What the hell is going on?_

"Yeah, you know, another experiment I came up with to see how well his powers work."

"Pretty well, I'd say," Kyle grinned as he poked at her stomach. "If he ever wants to go into the temporary tattoo business."

Liz's lips curved up in a smile as she laughed.

"Yeah, well, he's got a ways to go. I haven't been able to wash it off yet."

"He couldn't get it off with his mojo?" Liz shook her head.

"Nope. Semi-permanent. I just hope it goes away before Chase decides he wants to go swimming at Lake Arthur again."

The two of them shared a smile at that, saying their last good-byes with Liz disappearing inside the apartment and Kyle disappearing down the street, leaving one very confused and dry mouthed alien in their wake.

* * *

"I know what I heard, Max," Michael was pacing the floor in front of Max's bed as he spoke, his agitation combining with Isabel's nerves to make the usually stoic Max frown.

"So Chase…has powers?" Max ventured, glancing over at Isabel.

"I don't know, Max," Isabel bit down on her thumb as she gave her brother a nervous look. "I mean, he was acting really weird and he told me that he understood where we were coming from, so maybe…"

"Maybe, what? Maybe he's another alien? Like us?" Isabel made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, shrugging her shoulders as she bit down on her thumb again.

"Michael?" Max turned his attention to his friend, expression concerned. "You're sure you heard correctly? Liz and Kyle were talking about Chase's 'powers'?"

"Yeah, Maxwell. It's not a conversation I'm likely to be forgetting any time soon."

Michael paced one more time before turning to face Max.

"We need to look into this, Maxwell. Like now."

Max was quiet for a moment, mulling over their options.

"Michael's right," Isabel stated, lowering her thumb from her mouth as she glanced between her brother – brothers.

"Isabel," Max's voice was strained.

"No, Max, hear me out – if Chase has powers, like us, then maybe…maybe he can tell us where we came from."

"Maybe he's another alien, right?" Max shook his head. "I don't think so. Liz wouldn't have been so freaked if he was."

"Freaked?" Michael picked up on Max's inflection, exchanging a confused look with Isabel. "At the café?"

"No," Max didn't even bother trying to lie as he raised his gaze to the two of them. "In the bandroom, at lunch, today. Liz cornered me."

"And?" Isabel was tense, poised on the edge of the desk, the very picture of nervous.

"And we were working on a project in biology and she got a sample of my cells."

"Max!" Isabel was wide-eyed and panicked and Michael had renewed his pacing, cursing under his breath as he visibly clenched and unclenched his fists in obvious anger.

"I left the room!" Max shot back defensively. "She got them from my pencil. What was I supposed to do?"

"Not that! I mean, God, Max. What are we going to do? What did you say to her?"

"Nothing," Max replied. "We were in the bandroom when Chase came and I didn't say anything."

"Fantastic, so, she knows we're not human, but she doesn't have an explanation? So what conclusions is she gonna draw?"

"Little Miss Scientist?" Isabel snorted as she ducked her head into her hands. "God only knows. We have to tell her something."

"Maybe she already knows," Michael pointed out. "Maybe her brother is like us."

"Chase?"

"He's adopted, right?"

"Yeah, but he's from Boston," Max reminded the two of them. "Nobody picked him up wandering the desert late at night, not like us."

"So maybe he found his way to Boston. Maybe somebody brought him there and left him. I don't know, but that's not the point here, Maxwell."

"Oh really? What is the point then, Michael?"

The two boys glared at each other from opposite sides of the room.

"We need to do something," Isabel stated into the sudden silence.

"About Liz?"

"About both of them," Isabel replied, straightening upright as she glanced over at her brother.

"How?"

"You handle Liz," Isabel decided, placing her hands on her knees as she took a deep breath. "I'll take care of Chase."

"And Kyle?" Michael glanced between the two of them. "What do we do about him?"

"Nothing," Max exchanged a look with Isabel before focusing on Michael. "Not until we know what's going on with Chase."

Michael was quiet for a moment, locking gazes with Max for a long tense second before nodding.

"Okay then. We have a plan."

"We have a plan," Max agreed, worry not alleviated in the least.

* * *

"We need to talk." Chase, like any red-blooded male, appreciated a good set of legs the same as anyone else and Isabel Evans did have a nice set.

"Would you like me to chat with you or your legs?" Chase asked as he straightened from his locker, flashing Isabel a challenging smile as she visibly flushed at his backhanded acknowledgement of her so-called sneaky tactics.

"Can we just talk. Please?" Chase let his smile dim as he studied the blonde in front of him.

She was doing a pretty good job of hiding it, better than she had the day before, but whatever confidence she had come in with had faltered in the face of his regard, so he simply nodded and motioned for her to lead on.

"The Eraser Room?" He arched an eyebrow as he eyed the small space before turning to face her.

"Look, Chase, this is awkward enough to begin with, so let's just cut to the chase…so to speak."

Chase snorted as Isabel waved off her faux pas with his name.

"Are you always this charming, or am I just special?"

"That's the thing…" Isabel trailed off and pinned her with his gaze. "Are you?"

* * *

"Liz."

Max Evans' voice should have lost some of its appeal. It shouldn't still have the power to make her heart stutter in her chest or her breath catch and her skin flush. It shouldn't make her want to smile and turn around to face him, a familiar face and a complete stranger all wrapped up into one person.

"Max," she acknowledged his presence, not turning around as her gaze dropped to the floor.

"What are you doing here?" Here being the biology room where all of this had started. Liz could normally be found within its walls whenever she had a free period, doing extra credit or just helping out in general.

She loved science – loved its logic and the way that everything had a definitive answer to it.

She'd spent all day, subsequently, trying to figure out Max's abnormal cells and hadn't managed to come up with a single, logical explanation.

"I needed to talk to you. Alone." Liz swallowed, turning nervously to face him as she did so.

"Well, here I am. What is it you have to say?"

Max studied Liz Parker for a long silent moment.

She was fascinating to him – always had been, on and off over the years. She was one of his first memories of Roswell, a long haired girl playing games on the playground with other children.

As they grew older, he'd started noticing…changes in his feelings. That warm place she seemed to occupy had grown into something else, something he couldn't identify until that moment in the café when she'd been lying on the floor, bleeding to death.

"I wanted to talk about what happened. In the café." Liz stared at him quietly for a moment.

"Yes?"

"When the gun went off and…"

"I was shot," Liz supplied when Max said nothing for a long silence. "In the stomach and you…you healed me. You touched my stomach and healed me, Max. How did you do that?"

"It's…"

"Don't you dare say complicated," Liz warned, raising a hand and glaring at him, the first real spark of anything aside from panic he'd seen on her face since yesterday.

"Okay," he agreed with a soft smile that had her deflating like a popped balloon.

"It's different, then. _I'm _different."

"How," Liz licked her lips as she cautiously inched a step forward closer to him, "different?"

"Very." Max's lips quirked in a self-deprecating grin.

"How different is very different?" Liz asked, taking another step forward.

"Are you sure you want to know?" Max asked, concerned suddenly, a cold grip on his heart as he stared at her. It was dangerous, being him. He wasn't normal and anybody who became aware of that fact became both a liability and a target and he did not want to make Liz Parker a target.

But her brother…

He pushed thoughts of Chase aside as he focused on the girl in front of him.

"Tell me, Max," Liz breathed, taking another step forward so only a foot separated the two of them. "Where are you from?"

Max swallowed, dry-mouthed, as he stared at her suddenly steady face.

Unable to speak, he simply pointed his finger up towards the ceiling.

"Up north, then?" Liz opened her mouth, breathing shallowly as Max shook his head and lifted his arm, raising that finger higher.

"You're not…you're not an alien, are you?" She rolled her eyes with the word, but her breath froze when Max's expression didn't change even as his arm lowered.

"We prefer the term not of this Earth."

"Oh." She stared dumbly at him for a moment. "Okay then."

She was quiet for a second and he let that quiet hang there between them until Liz's head suddenly jerked up and her eyes widened dramatically.

"We?"

"What?" Max peered around the empty classroom, double checking the door he'd used his powers to shut and breathing out a relieved sigh as he turned to face Liz in confusion. "What?"

"You said we. What we? Who's we?"

"Me," Max stated, hesitating a moment before continuing onwards. "Me, Isabel, and Michael."

"Guerin?" Liz squeaked, staring at him in blank-faced shock. "He's an alien?"

"Yes. All three of us."

Liz let the silence stretch once more as she processed this, coming back to reality when Max let out a snort that suspiciously sounded like laughter.

"Excuse me?" She questioned, mildly affronted by his sudden shift in demeanor. "Is there something funny about this?"

"What? No. No! It's just…" Max bit his lip and smiled. "I just keep picturing you in that dress, with cupcakes."

"Cupcakes?"

"You didn't want to wear it," Max clarified. "But your mom had made it – the very first thing she'd made – and you didn't want to hurt her feelings by not wearing it, but you were so embarrassed to be seen in it."

"Oh, that," Liz's lips curved upward slightly at the memory before suddenly frowning. "Wait – I wore that dress in kindergarten. I didn't meet you until the third grade. Did you, like, read my mind or something?"

"No! No!" Max shook his head. "I don't read minds. It's just, when I healed you, I saw…things. Memories, or flashes of them. I can remember that dress and how you felt about it."

"And what did I feel?" Max's lips quirked again.

"That it was the single most supreme embarrassment of your life." Liz stared at him and he swallowed again, biting nervously on his bottom lip before making his next statement.

"I think – I mean, I've never tried – but I think I can make the connection go the other way. To let you see inside my head."

Max reached up with his hands, hesitating on either side of her head.

"I have to touch you to make this work." Liz was frozen, caught in his gaze, and it took a second for his words to catch up with her and she hesitated only a moment before nodding.

Max offered her that shy half smile as he gently placed his hands on either side of her head, taking a deep breath as he concentrated and then her view of his face was replaced by pictures.

She saw him as a kid, getting off the bus that first day of school. She saw him in a park, playing with his sister, saw his first meeting with Michael, all quick flashes, accompanied by a myriad of emotions she couldn't fathom let alone identify.

And then she saw herself, standing next to Maria by their lockers. And she felt what Max had felt and it was like…breath-taking.

She felt his emotions, his fascination and even…

He saw her as beautiful, so beautiful and it was so strong that she barely even noticed him as he came back into focus.

"Did you see?" He asked and she was so caught up all she could do was nod.

"Okay," Max smiled, looking both relieved and embarrassed at the same time. "Okay, then. I'll be…going, I guess."

She watched him go, leaving the room and leaving her to fall back onto a lab stool with a sudden exhale.

"Wow."

* * *

"Wow." Chase stared at Isabel Evans for a long moment, shaking his head. "I mean, wow. Seriously?"

"You didn't know?" Isabel stared at him. "I mean, you could do all these things, and you never once suspected?"

"Wait – what? What are you talking about?" Chase was confused now. Isabel Evans tells him she's an alien and then expects him to have figured it all out on his own?

"Your powers," Isabel crossed her legs, for once not trying to draw attention to herself just trying to get comfortable. "You never once suspected that you were…you know, different?"

"Oh. Oh!" Chase tilted his head back as he stared at her, letting out a nervous laugh as he wiped his hand down his face.

"You think I'm…like you." Isabel tensed, sitting straight up as she stared at him.

"Well, aren't you? Like me?"

"I'm definitely different," Chase supplied. "But I'm not…an alien."

"How do you know?"

"Liz," Chase replied. "When she saw Max's…cells, she checked mine. Human, same as hers."

"So you're not…You're just…"

"Different?" Chase supplied again with a wry smile. "Pretty much."

"And you have no idea why?" Isabel cocked her head to the side and stared at him in blatant fascination.

"None whatsoever," Chase replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

* * *

"So?" Michael was waiting for them by their lockers.

"So, what?" Max asked, reaching into his lockers as he glanced at his friends.

"Is he…you know, one of us?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask."

"Isabel?" Michael twisted to look at the statuesque blonde.

"No," Isabel replied shortly, concentrating on her books. "He's not."

"You're sure? I mean, he could be lying."

"Why would he lie about something like this?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's scared."

"Of us?" Isabel gave Michael a disbelieving look. "Honestly, Michael, we're the last people Chase needs to be afraid of."

She didn't bother to wait for a reply as Isabel shut her locker and started walking without so much as a backwards glance.

"I don't like this, Maxwell," Michael stated, watching Isabel walk away grim-faced and unhappy.

"Relax, Michael," Max gave his friend a faint smile as he patted him on the back. "It's gonna be alright."

Michael watched Max walk away in the opposite direction, his emotions a confusing tangle that just left him frustrated and on edge and floundering as he turned to head in his own direction.

The last thing this situation was going to be was alright. Michael didn't need his powers to tell him that.

A/N: Three chapters, two days. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. I've been working on this one all day, and I've gotta say, with a head cold and a slight fever, I'm doing pretty good. I may even manage one more chapter before the night is through.


	5. Revelations, Part I

A/N: I've been hijacked by my muse. This was not what I had planned, but it works. Revelations, Part II will probably be up within a week.

Chapter Three: Revelations, Part I

"Okay, what's going on with you?"

"What do you mean?" Liz put the newly filled salt shakers back in the tub, turning her attention to the pepper without so much as a glance at Maria.

"Ever since that almost shooting you've been…different."

"Different?" Liz couldn't keep the amusement out of her voice as she raised her gaze to look at Maria. "I was almost shot, Maria. I'm allowed to be a little traumatized."

"But you're not acting traumatized, you're acting…"

"What?" Liz asked when Maria trailed off.

"I don't know, like…like you just discovered some new biology experiment."

Liz snorted at that, twisting the cap onto a pepper shaker as she did so.

"A biology experiment?"

"You know," Maria waved her hands. "Some new weird thing that only you would find

interesting."

Liz bit down on her bottom lip to keep from smiling at Maria's colorful description.

She supposed, in a round about sort of way, that Max Evans could be described as her latest biology experiment, though who was the subject of the experiment was up for grabs. On the one hand, Max was an alien, which definitely put him in the interesting category of biology. On the other hand, Liz was having a definite biological reaction to the brown-eyed boy that was leaving her giddy and a little bit confused.

Just thinking about him had her flushing and she quickly ducked her head before Maria could get a good look at her face.

"Thanks," was her dry reply to Maria's comment.

The ringing chime of the front door had her raising her head out of instinct more than anything else and causing her to blink as Isabel Evans came strolling in, expression tight and one hand tapping a nervous rhythm against her thigh as she scanned the café before her eyes came to rest on Liz.

They flicked over to Maria for a brief second, her expression going tight before refocusing on the brunette as she made her way over.

"Hey, Liz," Isabel gave the brunette what was supposed to be a relaxed smile. "Is your brother around?"

Liz fought to keep her expression even as she took in the blonde.

"He's out with Kyle," was all she said instead. "They went to go see that new slasher flick."

Isabel's expression faltered for a second before it picked up again.

"Okay," she breathed with a nod. "I'll just…have to catch him later, I guess. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Liz's smile lasted until Isabel was out the door before it segued into a frown.

"What was that all about?" Maria asked, intruding into Liz's thoughts and drawing her attention over with a startled blink.

"Huh? Oh, that," Liz frowned slightly. "I have no idea."

But she did, the vaguest hint of something that had her dry mouthed and shaky.

Isabel Evans knew something about the Parker's just like Liz knew something about the Evans'.

And there was only one thing worth knowing that would have Isabel paying attention to Chase.

"Liz? Liz!" Liz blinked again at Maria, causing the other girl to frown.

"Something is up with you," the blonde stated, arms crossed as she narrowed her eyes at her friend. "Spill."

Liz stared at Maria for several long moments of silent contemplation.

Maria and Alex were her best friends – they were so close they could sometimes finish each others sentences or tell what the other person was thinking with just a look. It had always been hard for Liz to keep secrets from them, especially the big one about Chase, but this one…

It wasn't her secret to tell.

Not by a long shot.

So she mustered up an eyeroll and grabbed two dirty plates from the counter in front of her as she shot Maria a half-smile.

"You're being paranoid, Maria. There's nothing going on."

She walked back towards the kitchen, her smile fading as she felt Maria's gaze burning a hole in the back of her neck.

"What the hell are you hiding, Parker?" Maria muttered under her breath as she watched her best friend walk away.

First the shooting and now this?

Maria didn't handle stress very well – she was high strung like her mother and had a marked tendency to freak out.

But just because she was loud and out there didn't mean she didn't know how to be quiet and sneaky.

And she had an ace in the hole if that failed, one that was guaranteed to make Liz answer her questions.

She just really hoped Liz would come clean before Maria was forced to go that far.

* * *

"You told her." Liz was trying to make a simple statement, but it came out so accusatory that Chase did a double take.

"They figured it out," Chase replied, frowning at her.

"How? Did they catch you Using?" There was a real hint of worry there and Chase quickly shook his head.

"No, they overheard a conversation." Liz went still at that.

"Between us?" It wasn't exactly common for the two of them to talk about Chase's powers outside of the halls of their apartment, but occasionally they had whispered or half-volume conversations at school or just in town in general.

"Between you and Kyle," Chase replied drolly, leaning back against the wall at the back entrance of the café as he watched her.

He could see the changes in her expression.

First came the surprise, then the anger, and finally fear.

Surprise that it had been her and Kyle, anger that they'd been so careless with his secret, and fear for what this now meant for Chase.

"I am so sorry," she was in front of him, hands clasped in such a manner as to beg forgiveness and he folded her into his arms, murmuring comforting words against her hair as she all but collapsed against him.

"Its okay, Liz," he assured her, unable to keep a wry note of amusement from his voice. "I mean, it's not like they can go sell this to the National Enquirer. They've got secrets, too, remember?"

Liz nodded her head against his chest, her breathing slowing from a panicked pulse to a calmer, more even frequency.

"Yeah," she sighed against his chest. "I remember."

It wasn't something she was bound to be forgetting, not any time soon.

* * *

"So what's his deal?" Michael pestered Isabel as the two of them walked through the halls of West Roswell High. "Mutant? Freak? The next step on the human evolutionary ladder? Tell me!"

Isabel arched an eyebrow as she paused at her locker, giving Michael a look of almost amused disbelief.

"You have got to stop watching science fiction movies."

"Its research," Michael defended his obsession with an offhand shrug before refocusing his attention on the task at hand. "So spill. What kind of weirdo is Parker?"

"Not the kind you need to be messing with," Liz Parker's voice was strong and confident and directly behind him, close enough to send him backwards into the locker with a head-banging yelp.

"Geezus, Parker," he breathed, reaching up to cup his now bruised head as he glared at her. "Make some frickin' noise, why don't you?"

Liz spared him the briefest withering look before refocusing her attention on Isabel.

"You have secret, he has his. Leave him alone, Isabel."

"Why?" Isabel asked, fingers flicking nervously against the back of her books as she stared at Liz. "He has just as much at stake as we do. Actually, now that I think about it, _we're _in more danger than he is. Why should it matter whether or not we stay away?"

Liz flushed slightly under the taller blondes logic before raising herself up to glare.

"Because he's my brother," Liz replied, her ferocious loyalty to that fact apparent by both the heat of her gaze and the fire in her speech. "And I won't let you hurt him."

"I'm not going to hurt him," Isabel defended herself with a scowl. "And what does it matter to you anyway whether or not we hang out? Chase is a big boy, Liz. He can make his own decisions."

Liz watched the blonde walk away, feeling both uneasy and embarrassed by the encounter.

"You know I'm not going to just let this go," Michael spoke, drawing her startled attention back towards him. Liz met his gaze, her fear rising at the iron resolve she saw in his eyes.

"It has nothing to do with you," Liz tried to sound equally as fierce as before, but some of the wind had left her sails, heading out in the wake of Isabel's all-too-correct statement, leaving her sounding more like a petulant child.

"We'll see," was all Michael said as he pushed away from the lockers and walked away.

Left standing in the nearly empty hall, Liz barely paid attention to the warning bell as she sunk deeper into the realization that she could have just made a major error in judgment.

* * *

"Tell me, Liz," Maria was incessant with her pestering, setting the brunette's teeth on edge as she turned her head to offer her friend a tight smile.

"The gun went off, I fell and knocked over the ketchup. Max was just checking to make sure I was okay."

"And the blood?" Liz forced her smile to relax slightly.

"Ketchup, Maria. It was just ketchup."

"So Max ripping open your shirt? What was up with that?" Maria was fishing for information and when Maria was fishing, it was best to either tell her what she wanted to know or get the hell out of her way, and since telling her wasn't an option…

"Teenage hormones," Liz offered, throwing her hands up in the air. "How the hell should I know? Look, I've gotta go. I'm going to be late for class."

"Liz! Liz!" Maria snarled as her best friend, the one person she'd thought in her life would never keep anything from her, once more left her hanging in the wind.

"You get one more shot, Parker," she murmured in the empty bathroom. "One more."

* * *

"What's up with Evans?" Kyle's question had Liz starting, turning her head to blink up at him in wide-eyed panic as he stared across the quad at the three aliens.

"Max?" She blinked rapidly. "I have no idea. Why? Is he acting weird or something?"

Kyle frowned slightly, his brow furrowed in confusion as he turned his head to look at her.

"Isabel," he corrected, pulling out his sack lunch and giving her a weird look. "Not Max."

"Isabel?" Liz blinked again, this time in genuine surprise as she followed Kyle's previous line of sight to where the blonde sat, staring across the quad at something.

Something that, with a quick glance, had Liz frowning.

"I think she likes Chase," Kyle was saying with no small amount of amusement as he watched the blonde watch his best friend.

"I doubt it," Liz's reply was cold with no small amount of anger and fear that seemed to bypass Kyle altogether.

It wasn't that she didn't like Isabel and Lord knew that her feelings about Max were far from easily dismissed, but she hated the threat that they represented to Chase's secret.

For the longest time it'd just been her. She'd been in charge of keeping Chase safe, of helping him protect his secret from everybody. And then had come Kyle and it'd taken her a couple of months to get used to the fact that somebody else knew about her brother and even longer for her to get to the point where she wasn't dogging his every step to make sure he was keeping the secret.

And now three more people knew, three people neither she nor Chase had any real connection to. Granted, they were aliens and like Chase had said, they had a stake in keeping secrets to themselves, but still…

What if something happened? What if they got caught or found out or something like that?

What was to stop them from turning Chase in to save their own asses?

For the longest time after Chase had shown her his powers, that had been her continuous nightmare. Every night when she went to sleep she would dream about men in suits taking her brother away, experimenting on him, dissecting him bit by bit to determine what made him tick.

It was part of the reason she'd been so rabid about the whole 'there-aren't-any-aliens' thing. She didn't like weird – weird drew attention, attention that she did not need directed towards her brother.

"I'd have to disagree with you there," Kyle replied, biting the inside of his cheek as he watched Isabel rise from her seat with no small amount of mirth.

Liz clenched her fists under the table, her jaw tight and shoulders tense as the blonde drew herself up with a confident smile and made her approach.

A short conversation later and a half-smiling Chase was walking away with her.

The only comfort Liz got was that when she turned her head to follow their path, her eyes locked with a pair of soulful brown ones that were no more happy with the situation than she was.

And because she was so focused on Max Evans, she completely failed to notice the pair of eyes focused in on her.

* * *

"Something's up with Liz, Alex," Maria was saying as she watched her best friend wait tables later that night.

"Like what?" Alex asked, sucking down on his milkshake as he regarded his hyperactive friend with vague interest.

He'd been best friends with Maria long enough to know that the other girl had a tendency to be overdramatic most of the time. Still, it was his obligation and duty, and sometimes his amusement, as her best friend to listen what she had to say. Even if it was about their other best friend.

"Like the other day, in the café," Maria stated, fingers tapping against the top of the booth seat where he was sitting.

"You need to be more specific, Maria," Alex stated with amused patience. "There's been a lot of other days at this café."

Maria shot him a dirty look in reply.

"With the shooting," she stated, annoyed.

"You mean the almost shooting," Alex corrected, reaching over to grab a fry from the plate in front of him.

"No, I mean the shooting," Maria's nervous tapping was starting to get really annoying and Alex frowned slightly as he turned to look at her.

"What are you talking about, Maria? There was no shooting. It said so in the papers."

"Yeah, well, the papers lied. Or they didn't report the whole truth because they didn't know the whole truth because Liz lied."

_Oh boy._

Alex carefully placed the fry he'd been about to eat back down, turning and reaching up to grab Maria's hands in his own, drawing the blondes surprised attention to his all-too concerned face.

"Maria," Alex stated, voice filled with patience born of years of friendship liberally mixed with no small amount of concern. "I know you want to believe that something weird happened with the shooting because Liz hasn't been hanging out with you as much lately, but you need to understand that it's kind of hard for Liz to lie about being shot. Bleeding gut wounds like that are almost impossible to hide."

Maria frowned at her best friend, jerking her hand away with exasperated annoyance.

"I know that, Alex. But you're missing the point. Liz was shot." Alex's face tightened slightly at the words, but Maria plowed on regardless. "And Max Evans did something to her – "

"Whoa, wait. What does Max Evans have to do with anything?" Maria sighed, amused by Alex's sudden perplexed look.

"Alex, pay attention – two days ago Liz was shot. Max Evans was here and he did something to her, somehow healing her, before leaving with that scruffy miscreant he calls a best friend. Before the cops could get here."

"Healed her? Max Evans?" Alex turned his head slightly to look at Liz before turning his attention back to Maria. "Have you been sniffing the Cyprus Oil again? You know it makes you slightly delusional."

"UgH!" Maria threw up her hands, not even bothering to glare at Alex as she stormed away. "Nobody freakin' listens to me!"

"Maria!" Alex called after her, but the blonde was already gone, leaving him sitting there with several brand new thoughts, none of which were sitting particularly well with him. Not even a little bit.

* * *

"You're late," Chase spoke, his legs dangling over the side of the quarry bluff, not bothering to turn around to see who was approaching from behind.

"I had to dodge Michael," Isabel replied, hesitating a moment before dropping down next to him. "He's being paranoid again."

Chase snorted at that as he threw a rock into the water below.

"It's only paranoia if they're not out to get you," he grunted his reply, not missing the nervous tapping of Isabel's fingers as she stared at the miles of rockland below them.

"Hey," he interrupted, causing her to turn her attention towards him as he gave her his best reassuring smile. "You're fine. The only two people who know your secret are me and Liz and we're not going to be telling anybody anytime soon."

"Liz doesn't like me," Isabel blurted, flushing slightly immediately afterwards, embarrassed by the words. "I mean, it's okay, because you know, she doesn't have to like me, but…"

Chase sighed.

"Liz is protective," he stated, frowning at the rocks below. "She doesn't like the situation."

"There wouldn't be a situation if it wasn't for her," Isabel replied darkly before wincing at the callousness of her words.

"Sorry," she apologized, reaching up to run her hands through her hair as she made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. "It's just…"

Chase fought his brief flash of anger, clenching and unclenching his jaw as he reluctantly nodded his understanding.

"Yeah, I know – if Max hadn't healed Liz, you'd still have your secret and I'd still have mine."

"And Liz would be dead." Isabel's voice was soft, subdued as she hunched forward, chewing on her bottom lip as she gazed downward, warring with a myriad of emotions as she struggled to find something to say.

"It's not that I don't like Liz, and the thought of anybody dying because of us just kills me inside, but I just..." Isabel's breathing hitched as her hands curled up into fists, fists she banged against her knees as she continued. "I'm scared all of the time and I hate it."

Chase kept his silence on the matter. Unlike Isabel, his Powers hadn't made that much of an impact on him. With Liz by his side always, he'd actually found that he preferred not Using.

He'd told Liz once that Using was what he'd imagined smoking would be like – kind of nauseating at first, making your stomach churn and your throat close up as you choked on the sickening sweet nicotine, but the more you Used, the easier it got and sweeter it got until it became a drug – cloying and addicting and blinding you to reason.

He'd been fifteen when he came to this realization and it'd scared him and Liz enough that they'd made a pact – no using for petty things.

The point was driven home a few weeks later when Kyle had found out about him, thus sealing his determination to keep his Powers in the background of his life.

He wasn't sure Isabel had that option, though.

At least he didn't have to worry about men in black coming to take him away.

"God," Isabel let out a shaky laugh as she turned to smile at him. "I ask you to meet me so we can talk and here I am babbling."

"You're not babbling," Chase stated.

"It sure seems like it," Isabel replied, letting her gaze drift from Chase, a slight flush on her cheeks.

"You've met Maria Deluca, haven't you?" Isabel grinned faintly at that.

"Trust me, I know babbling, and this isn't babbling. This is venting."

"Venting," Isabel let out a dry snort at that, rubbing her hands against her face as she tried to regain a grasp on her iron clad control.

"Venting," Chase agreed, tossing another rock into the water below. "You've kept this secret for how long?"

"Ever since I can remember," Isabel replied, fingers curling nervously.

Chase blinked at that – it'd been hard enough keeping his secret, and he'd only had his powers for almost four years now. He couldn't really imagine having that hanging over you for all your life.

"And the only other two people like you are practically brothers. You can complain to them and they're gonna shrug it off as sisterly nonsense."

"Max and Michael aren't like that," Isabel jumped in, defending her brothers with all due loyalty. Chase arched an eyebrow, but obediently retracted his statement.

"Okay, so not exactly shrug it off, but not take it as seriously as you want them too. Am I right?"

Isabel maintained her silence for several long moments.

"Isabel?"

"I guess," was what she said as she nervously folded a flyaway piece of hair behind her ear.

Her initial high at finding somebody different, somebody safe to share her secret with, was fading, and her nerves, already running fairly high, were cording her muscles to the point where her instincts were screaming at her to leave. Unable to figure out why, she shot Chase another nervous look.

"It's okay," Chase was saying, continuing to throw rocks and pebbles into the water below. "Sometimes you just need somebody to talk to. If I didn't have Liz and Kyle, I think I'd have gone crazy by now."

Isabel straightened slightly at that, her instinct to flee fading slightly under a sudden wave of curiosity.

"How did they find out about you, anyway?' She asked, genuinely puzzled. It'd been a sacred pact between Max, her, and Michael to hide their powers and themselves as much as possible, she couldn't imagine why anybody with as much to lose as Chase would have voluntarily given away such information.

"I told Liz," Chase answered after a moment. "I was freaked out and didn't know what was going on and she was always the smartest person I knew. I figured if anybody could tell me what was going on it'd be her."

"And?"

Chase made a slight face.

"She has no idea who I am either." Isabel made a choked sound that had Chase turning his head to blink at her in surprise.

"Not that," Isabel was equal parts amused and exasperated by Chase's misinterpretation of her question. "I mean the whole you being different thing. How did she take that?"

"Oh, right," Chase smiled, slightly embarrassed. "Fine. She thought it was cool." He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Seriously?" Isabel blinked at that, her jaw dropping slightly. "She didn't…freak out or anything?"

Chase was quiet for a long moment as he tried to think of the best way to respond.

Isabel had that look in her eyes – one that spoke of hope and peace and acceptance – and Chase didn't want to be the one to burst her bubble, but whatever line of thought she was following was probably not good.

"Liz is special," Chase stated finally, rubbing the back of his neck and he tried to think of a better way to elaborate. "She and I…look, did I ever tell you about how we met?"

"No," Isabel was puzzled by his abrupt shift, puzzled and a little wary.

"I saved her life," Chase replied with a faraway smile. "She was this little doe-eyed girl wandering the backstreets, just begging for somebody to hurt her, and when somebody tried, I grabbed her hand and told her to run."

"Is that how you met the Parkers?" Isabel asked, curious.

"Sort of," Chase made a face. "I brought Liz to the police station the next day and I promised I would keep watch over her until she was safe and I was so focused I never saw the cops come up behind me."

Chase winced slightly at the memory – as ridiculous as it sounded, the fact that two cops managed to get the drop on him was one of the single most embarrassing memories of his childhood. It didn't make sense to most normal kids, but when you grew up on the streets, smarts and instinct kept you safe. And Chase had completely conked out with his leading to a massive loss of pride.

Pride he eventually regained with the Parker's, but the memory still had the ability to make him wince.

"You were arrested?" Isabel's voice hit a slightly higher disbelieving note that had Chase grinning.

"Not exactly. I was eight and I hadn't done anything wrong aside from showing up with a supposedly kidnapped child." Chase inhaled and exhaled once before continuing on, his hand digging into the dirt next to him as the old memory of absolute terror, faded but still present, had him shifting nervously.

"They were gonna take me away and put me back in foster care," Chase's voice was low, soft, and Isabel could see he was caught in some awful memory and before she could stop herself, she reached out and took his hand.

And then there were bruises, awful, hand shaped bruises that she could see overlapping his forearms, and looking up, she caught sight of the face of a gap-toothed child, eyes wide with terror and blood leaking down his face from a gash on his forehead.

She let go just as quickly as she'd latched on, a slightly hysterical cry traveling past her lips once, drawing Chase from his story with a sudden snap.

"Hey," he reached out to touch her. "Are you okay?"

"Don't!" She yelped, scrambling backward slightly as she stared at him, wide eyed and panting. "Just, please don't touch me. Not right now."

Chase stared at her, confused by her sudden shift in demeanor.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" Isabel was panting and trying to process what she had just seen, so she didn't even think before speaking.

"You were five, maybe six. He'd been hitting your foster sister and you interfered and he said he was going to teach you a lesson, teach you how to be a man, but you didn't want to hurt anybody. And he hit you and he wouldn't stop hitting and God!" Isabel choked as she stared at him, horror and pity in her gaze. "You were just a kid."

She reached out this time and it was him who flinched away, his calm evaporating and the verbal reminder of a memory he shared with no one, not even his parents. Not even Liz.

"How the hell…" he trailed off, shaking his head as he scrambled to his feet and running his hands through his hair as he stared down at her clearly upset.

"I have to go," he stated finally, hands falling shakily to his side as he stepped away from her, turning towards his car.

"Chase!" She called after him, but he was gone, peeling out of the quarry so fast he practically disappeared in a cloud of dust.

She sat back in the dirt, the cool air blowing her hair back into her face where it stuck against the wetness that came from the tears sliding down her face.

She couldn't imagine what it felt like to grow up like that. She understood fear – she'd been afraid ever since she could remember, but it hadn't been fear coursing through Chase's veins in that memory: it'd been utter terror.

Terror and despair and a complete lack of hope that completely drained her to the point where she could do nothing but sit in the dirt and cry.

"Isabel?"

* * *

"Have you seen Chase?" Kyle asked Liz towards the tail end of her shift, sitting at the counter and nursing a piece of Men in Blackberry pie as he frowned at his girlfriend.

"Wasn't he supposed to meet you here a half an hour ago?" Liz replied, brow furrowing slightly in confusion.

"An hour ago, actually," Kyle stated after glancing at the clock on the wall.

Liz straightened slightly at that, alarm rising in her eyes as she stared at Kyle.

"And he didn't call?" Kyle shook his head.

"No calls. No pages. You?"

"No," Liz replied after quickly checking. "Nothing."

"This isn't like him," Kyle stated with his own worried frown. "You don't think something happened, do you?"

"How?" Liz replied, but she was already untying her apron. "I mean, we've seen him survive a hundred foot fall off a cliff. What could possibly hurt him?"

That didn't stop her from ducking in the back and talking quickly with Amanda, one of the other waitresses, who agreed to cover her tables while she skived off a few minutes early to go hang with her boyfriend.

"Where are you going, Liz?" Maria poking her head into the backroom was not welcome in the least and though Liz loved her best friend like a sister, her brother was out there and he could be in trouble and she did not have the patience to deal with the tempestuous blonde at the moment.

"Out," was her too chipper reply as she reached for her jacket. "Kyle and I want to go to the movies."

"There's nothing good playing," Maria slid the rest of her body inside the door, staring with narrowed eyes at her friend. "You said so yourself."

"Yeah, well, Kyle managed to convince me otherwise," Liz let out an entirely fake chuckle as she shrugged into her jacket.

"What's going on, Liz?" Maria stepped forward, pinning the brunette with her glare. "Ever since the shooting you've been acting majorly weird."

"Maria," Liz couldn't keep the note of exasperation from her voice and nor did she particularly want to. "We've been over this a dozen times. Nothing happened. God! Why can't you just let it go already?"

"Liz?" Kyle poked his head in the pack, his eyes taking in the angry blonde before skipping back over to the brunette. "You coming?"

"Yeah," she managed a smile which faded slightly as she looked over at a clearly upset Maria.

"Look, Maria, it's just…I just don't want to have to keep relieving it. It scared me and I almost died and every time you mention it, it just brings all that back. So can you just…just stop asking me about it. Please?"

Maria studied her for a long moment before finally offering Liz a faint smile and a nod.

"Thank you," Liz breathed, drawing the other girl into a hug, her eyes closing in relief before she pulled back. "See you tomorrow?"

Maria managed a nod as she watched Liz leave, her hand dipping into her pocket and brushing over its contents.

"Maria?" Alex poked his head into the backroom, blinking at her. "Are you ready to go?"

Maria frowned over at Alex as she pulled the bloody order pad from her apron, watching Alex's eyes go from curious to alarmed as she did so.

"There's been a slight change in plans."

* * *

Liz managed to keep the happy façade on until she and Kyle made it outside of the café.

"Where would he go?" She asked, hugging her jacket tighter as she looked up at Kyle.

"My guess?" Kyle chewed on his bottom lip for a moment.

"Kyle," Liz prodded, expression annoyed and irritated at his hesitation. "He's my brother. I need to know he's safe."

Kyle studied his girlfriend who was practically his sister and fought the urge to sigh for more than one reason.

He loved Liz, that was undeniable fact. He just wasn't in love with her and he felt like crap because of it.

She was the perfect girl, too. Smart, funny, caring. Fiercely loyal and protective.

But lately every time he kissed her it was like kissing his sister. And judging from her nervous blink-of-an-eye glances, he wasn't the only one who was getting that feeling.

So to say he felt awkward driving Liz up to the quarry, affectionately known as Make-out Point, would be making an understatement of massive proportions.

"So," Liz stated, sitting the car next to him as they navigated over the bumpy roads. "Has Chase said anything to you lately?"

"About what?" Kyle replied, happy for the distraction from his kind of miserable line of thought.

"About…Isabel." There was an inflection there that made it abundantly clear that Liz Parker was not Isabel Evans biggest fan and had Kyle's eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise.

"He said she wanted to talk," Kyle replied after a moment.

"And that was it?" Kyle shrugged uncomfortably.

"I don't know. I mean, I guess."

"You guess?" Liz gave him a vaguely amused look. "I thought guys usually brag about this sort of thing."

Kyle let out a nervous sort of chuckle, smiling tightly.

"On occasion," he agreed, blinking and swallowing as Liz's eyebrow arched.

"How occasionally?" Kyle cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably.

"I don't know. You know, just, occasionally." Liz was quiet for a moment before a wicked little smirk formed at the edges of her lips.

"Did you ever talk about me?" Kyle choked slightly on that.

"What? No! _No!_ I mean, God Liz, you're practically my sister!" The second the words escaped, Kyle clamped his mouth shut, eyes wide and fixated on the road in front of him as he fought the urge to hyperventilate.

Of all the ways he had thought about starting this conversation, this had definitely not been one of them.

He waited in tense silence, navigating the backroads to the quarry as he waited nervously for Liz to say something – anything.

"Sister, huh?" She finally stated, voice dry with amusement and undeniable relief.

"Yeah," Kyle risked a glance over at her, breathing out with his own relief when he saw no hurt in her gaze. "Yes."

"Well that's good," Liz stated after a moment, her voice coming out soft and quiet and almost shy. "Because you're kind of like my brother, anyways."

"Yeah," Kyle agreed with a relieved smile. "I guess. I mean, I feel like your brother."

"Which is nice, because I feel like your sister," Liz smiled back, furthering Kyle's complete and utter relief.

"So I guess this means we're breaking up?" Kyle waited for a pang of hurt or betrayal or just a general unpleasant emotion, but all he got was a giddy sort of elation at the thought.

"I guess," he agreed, the two of them sharing a quick smile until Liz's eyes suddenly went wide.

"Kyle!"

"What? Huh?" He slammed on the breaks, his gaze swinging forward half expecting to see a dead body or some other disaster and instead fixating on a lone figure sitting at the edge of the quarry, her body shaking as her arms wrapped around herself, the picture of abject misery.

"Isabel," Liz breathed, giving him a worried look as she unbuckled her seatbelt and emerged from the car.

The two of them made their silent way down the bluffs until they reached her.

At first Kyle was pretty sure she had no idea they were there, even after Liz uttered her name, but then her head was tilting back and it was like a gut punch realization that she was crying.

"They hurt him," she told Liz, tears leaking in a steady stream down over her cheeks. "They beat him and starved him and treated him like an animal. And they tried to get him to hurt other people."

"Oh god," Liz's hand slid over her mouth, eyes wide with sick realization.

Max had told her this – told her that they sometimes got flashes, especially when emotions were high.

Isabel was stressed and Chase…

Chase never talked about his past before the Parker's, not even to Liz.

"Oh God," Isabel picked up her cry, hunching over as she clutched her stomach with one hand, reaching out blindly with the other to grab Liz and pull her down next to her.

"What kind of monster does that to a child?" Was her pleading question as she stared into Liz Parker's tear filled eyes.

"What the hell is she talking about?" Kyle asked, slightly hysterical at the sight of his now former girlfriend crying in the arms of a girl she'd more or less severely disliked only moments before.

"Chase," Liz had her arms wrapped around Isabel, holding her even as she stared in wide-eyed horror up at Kyle. "Chase was here."

"And?" Kyle couldn't hide his frustration and fear as he stared down at them.

"And Isabel got a flash," Liz was so stuck in her own horror at the realization of what Isabel was telling her that she didn't think to think.

"A flash? Liz, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Isabel gets flashes from people, memories," Liz stared up at Kyle, biting her trembling bottom lip. "She touched Chase and she saw…"

Kyle's eyes widened in horror, his hands coming up to cup over his mouth.

"Oh God," it was his turn to murmur, his eyes staring off into nothing before he abruptly turned and paced away a few steps, mumbling a few more 'Oh God's' before abruptly whirling back around.

"Wait a second," he stated, pointing a finger at Isabel and happily embracing the mystery Liz had placed in front of him rather than thinking about…

"Wait just a second," he repeated, shaking as he struggled with the nausea. "Isabel Evans gets flashes? From what? What happened?"

Distracted, freaked, a thoroughly confused, none of them noticed the figures approaching.

"That's what I'd like to know," Maria stated, hands on hip and eyes narrowed as she stared at her best friend, a worried Alex standing at her shoulder.

"And don't tell me it's nothing," Maria pulled something out of her bag and held it up for all of them to see.

Liz's eyes widened slightly, her thoughts jerking away from Chase as she stared at the bloody order pad clutched in Maria's carefully manicured hand.

"I know something happened in the café," Maria stated, legs spread shoulder width apart and chin tilted back at a completely stubborn angle. "And if you don't tell me what right here and right now, I'm taking this pad to the Sheriff and telling him everything."

"Everything?" Kyle jerked his gaze from Maria to Liz, eyes wide as they landed, briefly, on the bloody order pad. "Liz, what the hell is going on?"

With Isabel crying in her arms and in no shape to defend herself, it fell to Liz to protect her secret.

It was a moment of truth that had Liz swallowing dryly as her gaze darted from her ex-boyfriend to her best friends.

The question now was could she say what needed to be said?

And even more importantly, would they believe her?


	6. Revelations, Part II

A/N: Chapter 04…not quite as long as I wanted it to be, but not bad. The next Chapter will hopefully be posted within a week.

Chapter 04: Revelations, Part II

"Liz?" Alex was the first to break the silence, his concerned gaze resting on Isabel for a brief moment before rising to look in his best friends face. "What's going on? Why is there blood on the order pad? You said it was just ketchup."

"Blood?" Kyle paced over, taking the order pad from Maria who readily relinquished it and staring at the undeniable proof in front of him, wide-eyed and confused.

"What the hell, Liz? You told me the bullet missed."

With all eyes on her, Liz swallowed nervously once more.

"I can explain."

"But I can explain better," came the voice from behind all of them.

* * *

"Mr. Guerin," the even pitched drawl of Sheriff Valenti never failed to put Michael's teeth on edge.

It wasn't that he didn't like the guy – James Valenti was a man of obvious principle and Michael had always known the man fought for what he believed was right – it was just that he was an authority figure and Michael had a marked dislike of authority figures. He had yet to meet one who hadn't screwed him over in some way, shape, or form.

"Sheriff," he got out, turning to face the man, his tone cheerful and his expression surprisingly close to innocent.

"Mr. Guerin," the Sheriff continued, hands on hips as he regarded the boy in front of him with his best Sheriff-face. "Do you know anything about the shooting at the Crashdown Diner the other day?"

"The shooting?" Michael blinked his eyes at the Sheriff, frowning slightly. "Not really, not beyond what people are saying."

"And what is it, exactly, that people are saying?" He was trying to put pressure on Michael, to get him to make some overt sign of guilt or engage in some sort of suspicious behavior that would justify his interest, but Michael was an expert at lying to people.

"That Liz Parker almost got shot," Michael answered, frowning slightly at the Sheriff. "But what does that have to do with me?"

"Some of the witnesses claim that you were there. You and Mr. Evans, Max Evans."

"Max?" Michael blinked once at the Sheriff. "Max and me were out by the quarry setting off bottle rockets. We were nowhere near the diner."

"Really?" For some reason, this seemed to cause the Sheriff a considerable amount of interest, interest that had Michael straightening slightly, wary of it.

"Well, then, Mr. Guerin. I'm sorry to have to bother you. You have a nice day now."

Michael debated with himself for about as long as it took the Sheriff to take three steps back towards his cruiser before blurting out his question.

"Sheriff!" He called, causing the other man to turn and look at him.

"Yes, Mr. Guerin?"

"What's all this about?" Michael made a quick hand gesture between the two of them, his puzzlement not faked in the least. "I mean, it's not like anybody was shot. Shouldn't it be an open and shut case?"

The Sheriff regarded him carefully for several long moments before smiling once more and tilting his hat politely.

"Good night, Mr. Guerin."

"Not good," Michael muttered as he watched the Sheriff drive away, reaching into his pocket once the other man was gone to pull out the cell phone Isabel had loaned him earlier and hitting speed dial.

"Maxwell," he rushed the second the phone was picked up. "We have a problem."

* * *

"You?" Maria gaped at Chase for a moment before twisting her gaze over to where Liz was helping Isabel to her feet, the other girl wiping at her face as she focused on Chase with a guilt stricken expression.

"Me," Chase confirmed, causing Kyle to straighten slightly as he blinked at the other boy.

"How could you have done anything?" Alex pointed out, confused.

"I healed Liz," Chase caught sight of Isabel's completely relieved expression which fortified him from Liz and Kyle's dual looks of horror at the realization of what he was about to do.

"You?" Maria gaped at him in blatant disbelief. "How?"

"Like this." There were better ways to introduce Maria into his world, but Chase wasn't think much beyond protecting his sister. And right now protecting his sister meant sacrificing part of himself.

"Chase – " Both Kyle and Liz called out at the same time, Liz reaching for him as his eyes turned coal black and suddenly Maria's car was rising, levitating off the ground in front of the stunned onlookers.

"Whoa," Alex breathed, eyes wide, mouth opened into a perfect 'O' of surprise.

"Wow," Isabel let the one word slip past her lips. She'd known Chase was different, but up until this moment, she hadn't realized how different. Her powers could push things out of the way and – on occasion – blow shit up, but actually out and out levitation?

"This isn't happening," Maria was mumbling to herself as Chase slowly lowered the car back to the ground.

"This is not happening!" She stomped her foot, her hands thrown up around her ears as she turned to stare at Chase. "How the hell did you do that?"

Chase licked his lips once, keeping his gaze focused on Maria as he let slip one of his deepest secrets that he'd only ever shared with two people before.

"I'm not normal, Maria."

"Gee, ya think?" Maria had a grip on her hair, tugging at the short locks as she let her gaze fix on the car once more.

"Well I think it's kind of cool," Alex broke in, turning his wide-eyed gaze and grin towards a clearly miserable but firm Chase. "What else can you lift?"

"He lifted me once," Liz answered, drawing everybody's attention to her.

"And me," Kyle threw his cards on the table, causing Maria to turn to gape at him.

"You knew?" Kyle gave an uncomfortable shrug of his shoulders.

"It's kind of hard not to figure it out when you're levitating a hundred feet off the ground after slipping over the edge of a cliff. Chase saved my life."

"A real hero," Isabel murmured, expression solemn, her words heard by no one as she stared at Chase.

"You knew?" Maria repeated, her gaze fixing on Liz. "And you never told me?"

"It wasn't my secret to tell, Maria," Liz shot back, her voice full of no small amount of fear and a good amount of anger as well. She didn't like Chase risking himself like this – even worse, she didn't like how Maria was forcing them all into this.

But with one arm gripped around a still shaking Isabel, and her heart full of dread at the thought of what might happen to Max, she fought to keep her silence. If Maria told anybody about Chase, they had the option of lying – everything about him was human as far as Liz knew.

Max wasn't. All it would take was one drop of blood for someone to realize that.

"I just…" Maria stared at Liz, expression lost. "You're my best friend, Liz. I trust you with everything. And you lie to me? I can't even look at you right now."

"Maria!" Liz called out, alarmed and afraid not only for Chase but their friendship as well as the blonde girl started to storm away only to whirl back on them, shaking her head.

"No, no, no," she stated, pointing a finger at Chase. "You weren't in the diner, you weren't there. How could you have healed her if you weren't there?"

"Magic, Maria," Chase answered, managing to sound cocky and superior, an image that would last as long as you didn't look into his eyes.

Or as long as you weren't stubborn. And Maria was plenty stubborn.

"No, Max Evans had something to do with this. Max and his friend Michael. I know it – they were there. Liz got shot, Max knelt over her, and then she was covered in ketchup but fine."

"I healed her, Maria," Chase broke in, his tone sharp, his words absolute and expression challenging her to argue with him.

"Like hell," she snapped in reply, turning to face Liz.

"Liz, tell me the truth – what did Max do to you?"

Liz stared helplessly at the faces of her best friends – Alex curious, Maria livid – her jaw opening and closing as she struggled to find the words. Her eyes drifted over to where Chase stood, solid and firm and ready to take the blame for this whole mess and she closed her mouth, the words she'd been about to utter dying in her throat.

She couldn't – no, she wouldn't – do it. She wouldn't sacrifice one to save the other.

So instead she looked straight Maria straight in the eye and lied.

"Max didn't do anything to me, Maria. I'm fine."

It was the wrong thing to say – Liz knew that even before the words left her mouth – but what was she supposed to do? Tell the truth?

"You're lying to me," Maria was shaking, tears tracking down her cheeks as she glared at Liz. "I asked you to tell me the truth, and you lied to my face!"

She shouted the last words, her anger reverberating through the quarry, causing Isabel to cast a furtive fearful gaze around.

"I can't believe this," Maria was shaking she was so hurt and so mad. "Is it that bad, Liz? Why won't you tell me? What are you afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid, Maria," Liz shot back, struggling to come up with something else to say.

"I'm fine," she reiterated lamely, wincing as the other girl shook her head.

"No," Maria insisted, her anger mixing with steely determination as she gripped the order pad tighter in her grip. "You're not fine. If you were fine, you wouldn't be lying to me right now. Somethings wrong, Liz, and if you're not going to tell me what, I'm going to find someone who will, even if I have to go to the Sheriff to do it."

"Maria, don't!" Liz blurted, Isabel's loose grip on her arm tightening to the point of pain in her panic.

"Tell me the truth, Liz. Tell me what happened right here and right now or I swear to God first thing tomorrow morning, I'm going to Valenti."

Liz closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to witness what was about to happen, but it didn't really help. She'd been friends with Maria long enough to know the other girls expressions almost as well as she knew her own. And Maria was most definitely hurt and upset and worst of all, betrayed.

And Liz knew she had a right to feel that way, but no matter what else, Liz couldn't let anything happen to her brother or to Max Evans.

He had saved her life and she wasn't about to risk his to return the favor.

"I can't." Tears slipped down her face as she opened her eyes to find the blond staring at her, that betrayal fresh in her eyes.

"Fine," the word was uttered softly, almost disbelievingly before Maria's gaze hardened and her voice took on a steely edge. "Fine."

"Maria!" Liz called out, choking on a sob as the other girl turned and walked away, climbing into her car with one last backwards angry glance before backing up and pulling away in a cloud of dust.

"Don't," Isabel stated, her role with Liz reversed as she supported the brunette while addressing her brother.

"She's risking us all," Chase stated, his expression unhappy, his eyes watery as he took in his Bambi-eyed sister crying those eyes out with pain and hurt, two emotions he hated to see anywhere around her let alone on her face.

"And if you do anything right now, you'll cement it," Isabel shot back, hugging Liz close just as much for her own comfort as the other girls.

"She's scared right now," Isabel continued. "The last thing you need is to give her another reason to be frightened of you, of this."

"Liz can talk to her in the morning," Kyle broke in, tucking his hands under his armpits. "I'll try and distract my dad until then."

"Do you think that will be enough?" Chase asked, uncertainty creeping into his voice.

"It'll have to be," Kyle replied as he stared unhappily at his best friend and ex-girlfriend in the arms of Isabel 'Ice Princess' Evans.

Only Isabel looked about as upset as Chase, which didn't make a whole lot of sense.

"Wait a minute," Kyle frowned, turning his attention to Chase once more. "Since when does Evans know about your powers?"

"She caught me using," Chase lied easily enough, wincing as Liz's shoulders started to shake a little harder.

"And you're okay with this?" Kyle turned his attention to Isabel, eyebrow cocked disbelievingly. Even after Chase had saved his life and Kyle had called him a superhero, it'd taken a couple of months before Kyle had been comfortable enough around his best friend to stop jumping at shadows.

"Oh believe me," Isabel gave Kyle a wane smile. "I've seen weirder."

Liz's crying jag had ended as abruptly as it had begun and she pulled away from Isabel, wiping at her eyes as she snorted in sudden laughter.

"In case anybody's interested to know, I'm cool with this," Alex raised his hand in the air, drawing everybody's eyes towards him, expression pure innocence as they stared. "Just thought you'd like to know."

Liz couldn't help it – she snorted again, pushing away from Isabel to fall into Alex's wide open arms.

"Shh," Alex soothed, hugging her close and laying his cheek across the top of her hair.

"I'm scared, Alex," Liz whispered for his ears only.

"I know," Alex sighed. "But this is Maria we're talking about. She does not take surprises well."

Liz snorted at that.

"She'll think it through and realize how much it'll hurt and how bad the ramifications will be before she does anything." At least, Alex hoped she would. Because if she didn't…instead of just one friend, he'd be losing two.

* * *

_Stupid Maxwell_, Michael was thinking as he viciously kicked a rock away.

He called to let the other boy know about a potential threat, and what does Max do?

He orders him to leave the Sheriff alone and go home.

_Right._

Like that was going to happen.

Maybe Max didn't take threats seriously, but Michael sure as hell did. And no way was he going to be getting any sleep until he figured out what to do about the Sheriff.

He was thinking and plotting of ways to throw the Sheriff off their trail as he turned into a side alley, absently rambling through town, and was nearly side-swept as a red Jetta screeched to a halt right in front of him.

"Jesus Christ, lady!" He yelled, blinking rapidly, his heartbeat racing as a nearly unfamiliar head of blonde hair came poking out of the drivers side door. "You could have killed me!"

"Get in the car," Maria ordered, voice pitched low enough to send shivers down Michael's spine and not in a good way.

"Like hell I'm getting in a car with you in the middle of the night, especially not with the way you drive."

"Guerin, I swear to God, if you don't get into this car right now, I will go to the Sheriff and I will tell him about you and Evans and what you did in the diner the other day."

"You wouldn't." But Michael couldn't be sure of that – the blonde chick had the rabid look in her eyes that he sometimes saw in the mirror, the one that made it abundantly clear someone had decided on a course of action and come hell or highwater or a very unhappy Maxwell, they were going to do it.

"I just had my bestest friend in the entire world lie to my face not once, not twice, but three times, for you and your sorry-ass friend and I am going to find out why or so help me God, the next time you see me, it'll be on the free side of prison bars. So get in the flippin' car."

Michael moved on autopilot, opening the passenger side of the Jetta and climbing in, staring woodenly forward as the blonde settled herself back into the drivers seat, turning the engine and placing her hand on the gear shaft before turning her head to look at him.

"Put your seatbelt on," she ordered imperiously. Michael spared her the briefest frown, opening his mouth to tell her to mind her own business, but a combination of her steely gaze and the memory of her erratic driving had him clenching his jaw as he reached for the buckle, angrily yanking it into place.

"Look," Maria started, suddenly feeling a little less angry and slightly awkward, "I just want some answers."

"Drive," was Michael's tight reply.

"Guerin – "

"You want answers?" Michael turned to glare at her. If her gaze had been steely, his was downright titanium and she found herself freezing under its weight. "Well?"

She swallowed before wordlessly nodding.

"Then drive." She nodded again, backing out of the alley and onto the main street before pulling out into the light evening traffic.

"Where do you want me to go?"

Michael clenched his jaw once more before answering.

"Just drive."

* * *

She drove aimlessly for almost thirty minutes before Michael suddenly grabbed the wheel.

"What the hell – " she screamed, slapping at his hands until she managed to slam her foot on the brake and push the gear into park.

"Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Not yet," Michael shot back, unbuckling himself as he pushed himself out of the car, glaring at her over the top as she did likewise.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Maria demanded, pulling herself up to glare at him.

"It means you should have left this alone!" Michael snarled. "You were better off not knowing!"

"Not knowing what? What is going on, Guerin? What is so freakin' bad that Liz is lying to me about it? What did you and Max do to her?"

"Max saved her life!" Michael shouted, fists banging down on the top of the vehicle as he glared at her. "That's what Max did to Liz. That's what has you so frickin' upset. My best friend saved yours and now we're paying for it."

Michael shook his head as he glared at her. "I told him this was going to be more trouble than it was worth."

Maria watched, jaw gaping as Michael shoved off of the Jetta and stormed away into the desert, the set of his shoulders and the way his breath steamed in the cool nights air making his unhappiness and anger abundantly clear.

"Wait a minute!" Maria's strident tones set his teeth on edge and he had to seriously strangle his own urge to turn around and strangle her even as she boldly inserted herself into the space in front of him.

"What the hell did you mean by that? Saving Liz was the wrong thing to do?"

"Look what it got us," Michael shot back, smiling humorlessly at her. "One dead waitress versus two alive waitresses, one who can't keep her big mouth shut."

He had two thoughts immediately following that.

The first was '_Damn!_'

For a girl, Maria Deluca hit surprisingly hard and had surprisingly good aim.

The second was that he'd been hit harder in his life – much harder – so he barely blinked as he fixed her angry face in his sights.

"How dare you," she all but snarled, expression livid. "Where the hell do you get off suggesting that murdering my best friend is alright!"

"I never said that!" Michael snapped back, rubbing a quick hand over his stinging cheek before focusing down on her.

"You implied it."

"No, I implied that my life would be simpler and safer without you or Liz Parker in it and so far, Princess – I think I'm pretty close to the mark. What about you?"

Maria seethed for a few seconds more before crossing her arms and tilting her head back to study him in quiet anger.

"What?" He asked, suddenly nervous under her intense scrutiny. "What the hell are you looking at?"

"I don't know," Maria replied. "All I know is that I saw Max Evans do something that nobody on this earth should be capable of doing. And then Chase Parker lifts my Jetta three feet off the ground a fucking levitates it with his goddamn mind. What the hell is going on Guerin?"

"Chase can levitate things with his mind?" Michael blinked in surprise and – being a guy – Maria found herself rolling her eyes at the fact that of all the things that had escaped her mouth, it figured that _that _would be the one Michael fixated on.

"You don't seem that surprised," Maria noted with no small amount of suspicion mixing with her anger. "Why is that? You're not…"

"I'm not what?" Michael asked, blinking down at her in confusion. "Capable of levitating things with my mind?"

"Like Chase," Maria narrowed her eyes slightly as she studied him. Michael actually snorted at that.

"Not hardly." There was a bitter edge to his words that had Maria distracted enough that he managed to get by her to continue his journey into the desert.

"Hey!" She called, turning and jogging slightly to catch up with him, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back around with a pained grunt as she glared. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Princess, that if you go the Sheriff and they go knocking at the Parkers' door, Chase isn't going to have to hide anything. They can poke him, prod him, stick needles in him to their hearts content, and nothing will change."

"What does that mean?" Maria's face scrunched up in genuine confusion as she stared at him.

"It means Chase is human," Michael snapped out before he could stop himself. "And we aren't."

Maria's eyes widened to near saucer size as they fixated on him.

"What are you saying?" She finally managed to get around a sudden mouthful of cotton. "Chase is human and you aren't. What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means?" Michael snapped back, folding up defensively into himself as the sheer magnitude of what he had just done hit him dead in the chest, worse than any heart attack he could imagine with its paralyzing grip.

"You're not serious," Maria finally stated, her face curling up in an equally defensive sneer as she stared at him, uncertainty swimming in her gaze.

"No, Princess, I am. Max isn't human and neither am I. And if you go the Sheriff tomorrow and tell him anything at all about us, they will take us, they will lock us up in cages, they will poke us with needles, and eventually they will kill us. And don't think that just because you're human you're safe."

"Wha – what?" Maria felt like she was on one of those tilt-a-whirls at the county fair – spinning in circles and going nowhere but getting incredible sick in the process.

"Max healed Liz," Michael pushed forward, his tone cold, his expression completely unsympathetic, and his words an outer expression of his innermost fears. "When they come for us, when they want to see what we do and how it works, who do you think is going to be the first person they grab?"

"No," Maria breathed out, staring at him with that fearful uncertainty. "They won't touch her. Liz is perfect. She's normal – they can't touch her."

"She died," Michael shot back. "And she was brought back to life by an alien."

Maria visibly flinched at that word and Michael felt his lips curl up in an outwardly cruel smile.

"They won't care that she's a citizen of the United States – they'll take her and lock her up just as quickly as they'll take us."

"No," Maria was shaking her head, eye wide and filled with tears as she glared at him, stepping backwards and away. "You're lying. You have to be."

Michael stared at her, feeling gut punched instead of vindicated as he looked into her terrified eyes.

"Maria," he started, surprised at how tired and apologetic his tone was, but Maria didn't seem to hear it.

She was caught in a sort of horror vortex, visions of a half-dissected Liz in her head as she stared at a boy who not even minutes ago confessed to being an alien along with Max Evans, who had been mooning after Liz forever and because of that healed her when she would have died.

And if he hadn't healed her, none of this would be happening.

"This is your fault," she whispered, her words traveling clearly to Michael's ears amongst the noises of a typical New Mexican desert night scene. "You and Max. You did this."

"Max saved her," Michael shot back, trying to reign in his irritation in order to try and salvage the situation and failing most spectacularly. "You know that."

"Do I?" Maria was walking steadily backwards, Michael advancing slowly as to not appear threatening, but right now, with that expression in her gaze, he could have been standing stock still and she would have still be terrified.

"She was shot," Michael pointed out.

"The ambulance was on its way," Maria shot back.

"It wouldn't have made it in time." He managed semi-reasonable.

"You don't know that for sure," Maria's hands trembled as she clutched her car keys tighter in her hand.

"Yes, I do," Michael replied. "She was already dead."

"NO!" The vehemence of that one word, shouted from Maria's lips, had Michael coming to a dead stop as he stared blankly at her once more crying face.

"No," Maria was shaking her head as she fumbled to unlock the passenger side door, reaching inside to press the unlock mechanism before inching her way around the drivers side. "Liz would have been fine. This was your fault."

"Maria," Michael tried again, managing to get within a couple feet of the car as the blonde made it around to the drivers side.

"Don't," Maria warned, her tone ice cold and frigid as she glared at him.

"You're not seriously going to leave me out here, are you?" There was an incredulous note of disbelief to the words that he couldn't hide – after all this, he'd actually still managed to delude himself into thinking that Maria would give him a ride back into town.

"Throw your hand in the air," Maria called back, half-hysterical. "Maybe one of your fellow Space Cadets will give you a ride."

"That's not funny!" Michael yelled out, lunging for the car and missing as, with a squeal of tires on asphalt, the tail lights of Maria Deluca's mothers Jetta slowly faded into the night.

"Great," Michael muttered to himself as he turned and tilted his head back, looking at the sky to orient himself before picking a direction and walking. "Just fucking great."

* * *

_"Max."_

_He was dreaming._

_He was back in the diner, with Liz, holding his hand over his stomach, only instead of her expression being relieved, she was staring up at him in outright horror._

_"What's wrong?" he tried to say, only his mouth wasn't working right and all that came out was jibberish. Frowning, he tried again._

_"Are you okay?" Panic seized him as he clutched at his throat, eyes wide in fear as he rose to his feet and turned, trying to call for help and coming up short as he caught sight of himself in the shiny face of the coffee machine._

_His skin was green, his hair white. He had two antennas poking out of his head, pointy shells around his ears, and his fingers…they were long, as green as his face, and had one joint too many._

_"You're a monster," Liz breathed from the floor, drawing his attention back to her._

_"No," he tried to say, tried to placate her, but with one last horrified look, she scrunched her face up, opened her mouth, and –_

"Max!"

"What? Huh? What's going on?" Rubbing at his face to get the sleep sand of his eyes, Max peered blearily up at his sister, trying to slow his racing heartbeat as he frowned at her.

"Isabel?" He questioned, squinting at her before turning his gaze over to the alrm clock next to her. "What are you doing in my room at two o'clock in the morning?"

"We have a problem," Isabel informed him, taking a step back and giving him a clear view at the rest of the room.

For once he was glad he'd never taken up the habit of sleeping naked, especially when he caught sight of Liz amongst the influx of extra people occupying his bedroom.

"What? Isabel?" Max let his gaze linger on Liz for a moment, dropping over to her brother who stood supportively behind her, before sweeping over Kyle and Alex, who both looked just about as confused as he felt.

"What the hell is going on?"

"I am so sorry," Liz broke in before Isabel could offer up any explanation, her hand gripping tightly at her brothers hand as she blinked teary, puffy brown eyes at him.

His heart stuttered in his chest at the sight of those tears, his gaze jerking over to where Isabel stood, chewing on her bottom lip, a nervous habit she was always trying to break but could never quite succeed in getting rid of.

"Isabel?" He prompted again.

"We tried to talk to her, to make her understand what was happening," Chase broke in this time, his voice tight. "But she wouldn't listen."

"It's not your fault," Isabel was quick to jump in, her gaze fixating on Chase before dropping to meet Liz's gaze dead on. "It's not either of yours faults. You can't control her reactions any more than you can control the weather."

"That's Maria for you," Kyle interjected with a humorless laugh. "Almost as dangerous as a hurricane when you get her going full steam."

"Maria?" Max murmured, his gaze drifting over to Alex before settling once more on Liz. "What does she have to do with anything?"

"She's the reason we're here," Chase replied before a look from Isabel had him shutting his mouth, leaving it to her to break the bad news.

"Maria confronted us about the shooting today," Isabel stated as carefully and tactfully as she could.

"And?" Max prompted, dread settling in his gut as he took in Chase's solemn expression and Liz's heart broken one, ignoring Kyle and Alex for the moment.

"And we have a very big problem, Maxwell," Michael's voice had them all whirling around in startlement.

"That's just what I was going to say," Isabel breathed unhappily before focusing in on her brothers face.

"We're in trouble, Max."

A/N: I've been working on Blue, though you'd be hard pressed to tell from the one lone chapter I have posted so far. But I was sitting in class, not really paying attention, and suddenly I had a new journal and ideas for the next four chapters of Another World. The next three chapters after this are going to be entitled 'Troubles, Part I, II, and III' since Troubles usually come in threes.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, this is not going to be very canon. I will take plot points from all three of the shows, however (Supernatural will be making an appearance within ten chapters, but the rest of the Covenant won't really show up until Another Life). I may write a five chapter introduction for the Sons and either post it at the beginning of Another Life or as an Interlude when I start to get to the end of Another World.

And so, in closing, I ask that you sing my praises to the almighty review button. My muse and my poor tired fingers would greatly appreciate it.

**Sidenote: **Old authors notes. Lends authenticity.


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